


Sing Morning Out Of Night

by copperbadge



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood
Genre: Regeneration, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-21
Updated: 2009-06-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 10:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3206486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A strange deck of Tarot cards, a dying TARDIS, and UNIT's invasion of a coastal Welsh village lead Torchwood to investigate the disappearance of the Doctor, with some help from Sarah Jane and Luke Smith. This is a new incarnation of the Doctor, however, and none of them are prepared for what they find as they unravel the mystery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Morning Out Of Night

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the TARDIS Big Bang, whose site is now kaput.
> 
>  **Thanks to** 51stcenturyfox for betas!

_The Magician: The first card of the traditional Tarot deck, discounting the un-numbered or zero-numbered Fool. Power; Secrecy and mastery of secrets; elemental control._

_Card is labeled **I. Magician** and portrays a young man with curly black hair in a grey cape or cloak. His arms are extended and in each hand he holds six smaller cards with miniature portraits. Portraits are difficult to discern and I have noted them for magnification analysis._

***

The ruins of St. Dogmael's Abbey, a fine old 12th century monastery, lie in the town of St. Dogmaels, just outside the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park on the windblown Atlantic edge of Wales. Five miles to the west of St. Dogmaels is the coast itself, cold and damp, the cliffs flocked with green until they drop sharp and sudden into the water below. The land crops out in a jagged, uneven line into the ocean, eventually sweeping north and inward, a cracked little jut of water forming a river before it smooths into the hook-arc of Cardigan Bay. 

A sea-gull padded about on one of the outcrops due west of St. Dogmaels, that day, looking for insects or the odd dead animal (sea-gulls aren't picky). The knife-gusts of wind hardly bothered it either, until an eddy blowing the wrong direction almost knocked it flat. It half-opened its wings, hissed in the way sea-gulls do, and hopped backwards as the wind began to curl and blow, not east as it usually did but in circles and swoops. A sharp mechanical groaning noise filled the air and the sea-gull took off, screaming. A large, square object began to coalesce and solidify, first appearing and then turning opaque. There was a sharp squeal of metal-on-metal, a skin-juddering sound that would tell even the most insensitive dolt that something was amiss. For a moment it disappeared entirely, and then it reformed with a sharp snap.

There on the bare coast of Wales stood a blue box, marked POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX. 

It might once have been vivid blue, but now the shade was much closer to a cold grey, and the yellow light in its sign barely flickered. Gummy black liquid streaked its base here and there, and the sound it made as it settled seemed almost...tired. 

One of the doors swung open, but for a moment no-one emerged. Eventually, a figure staggered out, tripping on the uneven ground and landing hard on green turf. He rolled over, moaning, and curled on one side. He pulling his arms around his body, his knees up to his chest. 

He might have been considered pretty, if his face weren't twisted with pain, dark smudges under his eyes speaking to brutal exhaustion. He had a short crop of curly black hair and his eyes, open and staring, were a shade somewhere off of hazel -- almost brown, but not quite. He shuddered for a while and then fell still. 

With effort that would have been visible, if anyone but the birds were there to see, he rolled again and pushed himself to his knees, then to his feet. A heavy wool cloak blew against the backs of his legs as he stood, swaying. Below the edge of the cloak, his thick boots were dull with abrasion, the leather the texture of sand, cracked across the top where it creased when he walked. He cradled one arm to his chest, thumb running along the scaled and flaking skin of his index finger, and pulled the cloak tighter with the other hand. 

He took one wavering step away from the box and the ocean behind it, then two, then three, and though it seemed like he might fall his stride was at least steadier than his balance. 

He did not close the door behind him. 

He made slow progress across the field, towards a distant road, and then a cautious crossing to another field. He seemed to scent the air as he tried to decide -- follow the road, an uncertain distance and destination, or bear west to a hazy smudge that seemed to indicate a town?

Decision made, he set out through the field. 

Two and a half miles from the coast, between St. Dogmaels and the ocean, there was a single house. Its property was bounded, as most still are in that part of the country, by high hedges. It belonged to Ellen Griffith, or at least Ellen thought it did; the land was held in deed by her father, Meredith, who made a modest income from the farmlands surrounding it. 

Ellen was twelve, smart for her age and already a pretty girl: blue-eyed, dark-haired, a kite-builder of no little skill. She had just launched her first proper parafoil on a beautiful clear Saturday, while her father was still inside doing accounts. When the man in the thick wool cape staggered through a gap in the hedge and into her field, she started and bolted, skittish, wary of strangers and conscious she had strayed perhaps further from the house than she'd said she would. 

There was the parafoil to consider, however, and she couldn't simply drop it. The line tugged her fingers and she turned as she ran, in time to see the man fall and lie still, no whisper of tall grass to indicate he'd moved. She edged back slowly and heard him pant heavily for breath. 

"You all right, sir?" she called warily. No reply. Closer, and she could see him -- curled against the wind, one hand clenching rhythmically against the earth. "You need a doctor, sir?"

"Help me," the man groaned, a gravel whisper. "Please help me."

The line of the kite came loose from her hands as she knelt next to him, and the parafoil went skimming higher into the sky. 

***

_The High Priestess: The second card in the deck. Power of a more esoteric form than The Magician; intuition, discretion, and sensitivity._

_Card is labeled **II. Priestess** and is a replica of a well-known portrait of Queen Victoria. In one hand she holds a scroll clearly stamped with the Torchwood insignia at the time of her reign. If these cards are contemporary counterfeits they are extremely well-researched._

***

It wasn't an unusual day, especially, not for Ianto Jones. 

Well, perhaps some things were a trifle out of order. 

Ianto was not a creature of habit by design, but he'd had a certain love of ritual imposed on him in London, where each file and object that passed through his hands at Torchwood had a specific procedure assigned to it. In the days after that Torchwood burned, timekeeping and ritual were all that had kept him going. Medication for Lisa, multiple times daily, everything always in its place so that no time would be wasted finding it, a set task always so that even when he was exhausted he knew where he should be and what he should be doing to keep things functioning. After Lisa's death -- second death, third death -- ritual had kept him from brooding, even separated as he was from the rituals of Torchwood during his suspension. Once he had come back to Torchwood, it filled his days. Habit and ritual had helped him through the loss of Jack after Abbadon, and the loss of Owen and Toshiko after Grey. 

He had two morning rituals now, each pleasant in their own way. If he woke at home he could shower, dress, drink a hasty cup of coffee, and get out the door to Torchwood. At work he would serve morning coffee to the others and thus proceed to the business of the day. That could never be orderly because...well, Torchwood, but Jack usually had some kind of plan. 

Or, if he woke at Torchwood, there would be Jack, like a furnace pressed against him in the little cot beneath the floor. Sometimes they made time for a quick fumble but more often there was just a shower in Torchwood's facilities and his spare suit, coffee, breakfast, the day's business. 

That day had been a Home day, and he'd overslept just a bit, which was putting him off. He thought he'd save everyone some angst by picking up coffee and breakfast from one of the cafes en route to the Hub. There'd been a line, which wasn't unexpected given the time, and then the usual: black double-strong (Jack), tall with sugar (himself), Latte extra foam (Gwen). A sack of assorted pastries, so they could pick and choose what they wanted. And a shortcut down an alley, past the stage-door and the loading dock of the Millenium Centre -- 

He had to stop himself abruptly at the end of the alley, because a young girl -- big dark eyes, long brown hair, and an odd, old-fashioned red coat -- skipped out in front of him. As he twisted and rebalanced, wary of the cardboard cup-carrier, he smiled and muttered an apology. He moved to sidestep her and she mirrored him.

"Hello," he said, more in surprise than greeting. "Sorry, it's only, hot coffee, and I'm running late."

"You're going to see Jack Harkness," the girl said. 

Not a girl, then, probably.

"Ah," Ianto replied. Then, not seeing any point to a lie, "yes?"

"I have a present for him," she said, and pressed a small paper-wrapped package into his pocket before he could shift the bag and offer a hand to accept it. 

Then she smiled up at him, a terrible bittersweet smile much too old for her face, and turned into dust in front of his eyes. 

The dust didn't settle, even -- it blew up and into the air, fanning out into a thin scrim across the sky before disappearing entirely. 

"Well," he said, staring upwards. "That's not normal."

There was a buzz of the comm line opening, and then Jack's voice in his ear. "Ianto Jones! I'm starting to get the shakes. You got an ETA on that coffee?"

"Sorry, Jack, just...caught something a little strange," Ianto replied, stepping out from the alley. "Camera 19, scroll back about fifty seconds."

"You're on the Plass?"

"A little outside it," Ianto replied, still peering around as if the girl was likely to rematerialise. "I just saw someone -- "

" _Shit,_ " Jack interrupted, obviously watching the camera feed. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I think even hampered by breakfast I can handle a child," Ianto replied.

"She isn't a child," Jack answered, confirming his suspicions. Then, as he evidently watched the rest of the footage, "What the..."

"She just dissolved," Ianto said, still investigating corners and shadows. Silence on the end of the line. "Jack?"

"Ianto, listen to me very carefully," Jack said, his voice suddenly strung tight with tension. "I want you to put the food down and walk to the lift."

"Put the food -- "

" _Now._ " 

Ianto crouched and set the bag of pastries and the coffee-carrier on the ground and walked briskly across to the paving-stone lift. He'd hardly stepped foot on it before it was moving. 

He could see, as it descended, Jack down below with a scanner, Gwen looking confused and concerned next to him. Jack scanned him at maximum range while he was still in motion, then pulled him off the paving-stone platform, right into his body, pinning him against his hip, his other hand tight on Ianto's bicep. Ianto glanced over Jack's shoulder at Gwen, who shrugged. 

After a second, Jack let him go, giving him a thoroughly confusing look before stepping back. 

"Jack..." Ianto said hesitantly. "What's -- "

"You just saw death," Jack said.

Ianto sighed. "What, again?" he asked resignedly. "Also, if she was Death -- "

"She wasn't Death," Jack answered. "She was waiting for it."

"That's eerie and unsettling," Ianto told him. 

"Yeah. Conference room, five minutes," Jack said, already walking away. 

"Jack," Ianto called after him. Jack turned, still moving, walking backwards now. "She gave me something for you."

That stopped him. "What?"

Ianto took the slim brown package out of his pocket. "She asked if I was going to see you, and she gave me this for you."

Jack accepted the package warily. It was small and oblong, brown paper and twine, not much larger than a mobile phone, narrower than a paperback book. A spasm of emotion -- pain, regret, anger -- crossed his face. 

"Shall I make coffee?" Ianto offered.

"Yeah," Jack answered absently, running his fingers down the smooth brown paper. He turned without any further acknowledgement and walked back, eyes still on the package, clattering up the spiral staircase with long bounds. Gwen glanced at Ianto.

"What was that all about?" she asked. 

"Dunno," he said, eyes still on Jack. 

***

When they came up to the conference room, Gwen with her coffee and Ianto with his and Jack's cups, Jack was sitting at the head of the table, back to them, a scrap of brown paper and discarded twine at his elbow informing them that he'd opened the package. Gwen circled carefully to his left, Ianto to his right, their chosen places now that Tosh and Owen were gone. They kept close, these days.

The package, it appeared, was a deck of cards -- too large for orthodox playing cards, too well-decorated as well. Jack had the deck centred between his hands and was plucking cards up, examining them, setting them out in a disordered pile but carefully enough that perhaps the arrangement had some arcane meaning for him. Ianto carefully set his cup down well out of range of the cards.

"What are they, then?" Gwen asked. Jack turned over a card with two fingers, then held it up. 

"Tarot deck?" Ianto guessed, studying the black-edged red on the back of the card. Gwen looked from the card to Ianto's face and bit her lip. Jack twirled the card deftly, still using only two fingers, and laid it down in front of him. 

Ianto studied, it, pulling it towards him, and then picked it up. He felt his brow furrow. The card showed a knight in bright silver armor, almost futuristic in its cut, like the cover of a science-fiction novel. The man's face was visible and it was Jack's face, half-shadowed by light shining over his shoulder but certainly Jack's face. It was captioned _XII. The Sun_. 

"Why..." he started, but he wasn't certain where he was going with the question.

"I used to be Jack of Swords," Jack said. "Wonder what changed. No, wait..." he fished a card out of the deck and turned it over. The legend at the bottom read "Jack of Swords", and it was Jack again -- but in that image he was in a long ulster, not even his greatcoat, and the dim background showed some kind of subterranean construction site. Ianto saw Gwen covertly look out over the expanse of the Hub before returning her gaze to Jack.

"Huh," Jack said. "How d'you like that."

"But they _are_ fortunetelling cards," Gwen prompted. Jack set the card down and pulled them into a pile. 

"I don't know," he replied. "She told my fortune with them, a few times."

"Who was she?" Ianto asked.

"A girl I knew a long time ago," Jack replied. "We'd cross paths sometimes. I owed her a few favours."

"Are we sure she's dead?" Gwen asked. 

"Oh yes," Jack said, and this time he didn't try to hide the sorrow in his face. Gwen picked up another card and studied it, while Ianto returned The Sun to the deck. "She and Death had...a unique relationship."

"Looks like she wanted you to inherit these," Ianto observed. Jack tilted his head at him.

"Maybe," he said. 

"Do you think they work?" Gwen asked idly, laying the card down again, across the deck. 

"I'm more interested in why your face is on them," Ianto remarked. 

"Just the two," Jack said, which wasn't an answer at all. He pulled the messy deck together neatly, fingers edging all the cards into place. He cut it, one-handed, and then offered half to each of them.

"I want a full analysis. Throw everything at them you can think of. Nobody is ever alone with the deck, keep it in containment when it's not being used, and if anyone starts acting weird the handcuffs are coming out."

"That a promise?" Ianto asked, before he could help himself. Gwen snickered. Jack gave him the not-as-funny-as-you-think look. 

"What about you, though?" Gwen asked. "Are you taking some? She gave them to you, Jack."

"Yeah, and let's not find that suspicious at all," Jack replied. "Go on. I'll work the girl angle. I have some files to pull from the archives."

Gwen looked at Ianto, who shrugged and collected his half of the cards, along with his coffee. "Mass spectrometer, carbon-dating, chemical analysis."

"Owen has -- " Gwen stopped herself, then restarted. "There are some medical scanners that might be useful."

Ianto nodded and let her go first; they left Jack there in the conference room, one hand drifting out to tangle up with the twine that had tied the package, brooding.

***

Meredith Griffith saw his daughter and her companion coming across the field from the upstairs study of the farmhouse, and his first instinct was to throw down his pen and run for her; at a distance it looked like his daughter was being attacked, but a second look as he ran down the stairs told him this wasn't the case. She was half-carrying a larger man, his body leaning weakly into hers, and they both staggered as they came. Ellen's pride and joy, the parafoil he'd helped her sew, was nowhere in evidence. 

Meredith picked up his speed, running flat across the field, and met them halfway to the road that split the field from the house. Ellen let the man fall into her father's arms, his fingers clutching at Meredith's sleeves. She was already babbling about finding a man in the field and him being in a bad way and her kite going missing. Meredith swung the man around, propped him easily on one muscled shoulder, and helped him stumble across the road, into the house.

"Call 999," he said to Ellen, but the man's hand shot out with surprising speed and blocked her. 

"No doctors," he grated, as Meredith eased him into a chair. "Please, no."

"Mate, you're not well," Meredith told him. 

"Just -- hungry and..."

The man turned his face up and Meredith got a good look at him for the first time. A young face, narrow, clever, but marred by pain and fatigue. A bruise welted the side of the man's jaw. Other bruises were rising in the places where Meredith had touched him -- neck, wrist, probably shoulder under the thick cloak. He hadn't handled him very hard.

But it was the eyes that arrested him. Bottomless, weird, old -- pleading and desperate, yes, but so far beyond Meredith's experience that he worried for a moment they'd brought a demon into the house (a seed of his superstitious mother, God rest her soul). 

Ellen looked from one man to the other, obviously hesitant to disobey the stranger's order. 

Meredith made a decision. Still looking into the stranger's eyes, he said, "Ellen, fetch soup and warm it. Mate, you stay there."

The man nodded, tipping forward, catching himself before he fell. Meredith went to the cupboard and took down vinegar and sugar, poured a measure of each into a tall glass, sprinkled it with salt, filled the rest with water, and stirred it briskly. Behind him, the hum of the microwave told him Ellen was heating the soup. 

"Here you are," he said, offering the glass to the stranger. "Drink up. Old home remedy. You look a bit spent."

The man tasted the concoction, smiled faintly, and tipped his head back, downing the glass. 

"Easy!" Meredith said, taking it back from him. "You'll take a cramp."

"Not me," the man mumbled, but his voice sounded better. The microwave beeped; Ellen brought the soup over, sliding the mug -- oh, good girl! -- into his lifted hands. 

A thank-you wouldn't have gone amiss, Meredith thought idly, but there would be time for that later. The man drank the soup more slowly, chewing bits of veg occasionally, and when he was finished it tipped from his fingers. He fumbled to catch it, missed, and stared down at the hard earthenware cup as it spilled the dregs onto the floor. 

"You're done in," Meredith informed him. "And you probably need hospital."

"No hospitals. Please," the man answered. "Thank you, I can -- "

"Whoa, where d'you think you're going?" Meredith said, as the man tried to stand. 

"Cardiff," the stranger said, and Meredith laughed.

"You're halfway across the country from Cardiff," he said. "What were you planning to do, walk there?"

The man looked like he might cry, but before he could those strange, compelling eyes rolled up in his head, and he tumbled sideways. He would have fallen, but Ellen darted forward and caught him. Meredith grasped his shoulders lightly. 

"Well," he said, easing the unconscious man back into the chair. "What do we do with him, Ellen?"

"Call 999?" she asked.

"Think we should?"

She looked at the young face, frowning.

"No," she said.

"Me neither. Go and hold the door to the spare room," he answered, and carefully gathered the unconscious man up in his arms. Perhaps all he needed was a good sleep, but Meredith knew -- those eyes said -- that this man was unearthly at least. 

_Perhaps_ , he thought whimsically, _we've an angel in the house. Mum would be so pleased._

***

They sat at opposite sides of a cleared worktable -- Suzie's, now nobody's, long since left for anyone who needed a spare place to spread out. Ianto turned the cards face up and started setting them in piles. And after watching him for a second, Gwen followed his lead. There seemed to be four suits and a group of miscellaneous cards with different numbering on them, and when he could pile two or three together he did so. 

"What do you think Jack's looking for in the archives?" Gwen asked, as they sorted. Ianto turned up a card with the number two in the corner and some kind of undersea monster with its head just barely above water, coins set in the eyes. Grim. 

"Dunno. Probably looking for that girl. If he knew her, he might have a file on her."

"Do you know anything about her?" Gwen asked.

"Never seen her before. It's possible she's in his..." The Hermit, one of the odd-ones-out, a tall figure in a cowl holding a lantern, face obscured. "...special files."

"His special files?"

"Torchwood keeps two filing systems," he answered, unsettled by the card. He placed it carefully under another of the miscellaneous -- The World, a strange antique map of the Earth. "Official files, and Jack's special files. They're not in the computer. I'm not allowed into them, but I think they go back to before he was in charge. Things he didn't want the organisation to see, I imagine."

"More secrets," Gwen murmured. "More secrets that you knew."

"He never opens them. I hardly notice they're there, don't think about them. Door to that room is locked."

"How can you not think about them?" she asked, setting her half-sorted deck down. "How does it not bother you?"

He looked down at his own cards. Cups, Staffs, Coins, Swords. And a mess of disordered miscellaneous. 

"We all have secrets," he murmured. "I trust Jack to know which ones are dangerous if they're not kept."

Gwen sighed. "Sorry. It's just...he _tells_ you."

"Not much, he doesn't. Besides, he knows I'm a coward," Ianto replied, giving her a short smile. "I'll fall into line, most of the time. You...well, you aren't."

"You're not a coward, Ianto."

"Mm. Doesn't matter. Tell you what, trade you," he added. "May as well keep the suits together. You take Swords and Cups, I'll take Coins and -- are those pikes or staffs or what?"

"What about the miscellaneous pile?" she asked, as they swapped them around.

"Each take some?" he suggested. 

"All right. You do the science thing, I'm going to scan the rest -- " she paused.

"What?" he asked. She tossed a card across to him. On it was a woman, holding open the mouth of what looked, at first, like a lion. On closer inspection it was a man in a lion suit. The woman's face, however, was the most striking: oval and serene, framed by long black hair. 

"Looks like Jack's not the only lucky one," he answered, holding it up and comparing the card's face to Gwen's. "D'you suppose I'm in there as well?"

"I'm going to start scanning mine," Gwen said. "You hold on to that one."

"Fair enough."

He gathered his cards as Gwen began feeding hers into the scanner, one at a time, so that it spat them out into the tray in a ragged pile. He could use the medical equipment first -- presumably that wouldn't damage the cards at all.

They worked in silence, just the hum of the machines and the clack-clack of the scanner, but he could feel Gwen's presence above, in the atrium. Since Tosh and Owen had died (and that wound was still raw) they always seemed to do that: Jack was hyper-aware of where his people were, checking more frequently on the comms than he ever had before, but even Gwen and Ianto tracked each other more. At any time in the day, if he suddenly didn't know where she was, he stopped and felt his pulse quicken until he located her. 

The medical scanner beeped and he pulled the long arm with the alien device back away from the table where he'd spread the cards, turning to study the readout. Owen, in his head, pointed to the spikes on the graph -- _listen, if you want to know everything, see if you can follow along..._

The cards had been on Earth a long time, to judge from their background radioactivity. But the paper wasn't earth-origin fibre, and the pigments weren't registering at all. He glanced at the cards to be sure they really were printed and not blank sheets of paper. Something tugged in the back of his head like a loose tooth, some half-forgotten fragment of Torchwood London...

"Ianto?" Gwen called, and he shook his head, dispelling it. 

"Yup," he replied, walking to the edge of the medical bay to look up.

"Scanning's done, swap you?"

"Sure," he said, handing her the cards. "Pass me yours. Going to have to run a mass-spec on these, I think. The paper's alien in origin," he called, as Gwen fed the other cards into the scanner. "Possibly the pigments too. They're not registering at all."

"Reckon she's an alien?" Gwen asked, leaning on the railing. 

"Was. Maybe. Jack'll know more. Could you get the printouts for me? He'll want to see them."

She nodded and walked away -- not far, just to the printer at the tech desk -- and he opened one of the supply cupboards, taking out a sleek new scalpel. Everything here was in order, for the first time in a long time, and some of the bottles were starting to get dusty. He ought to dust, but that felt like admitting Owen was never coming back.

He uncapped the blade, singled out a card that already had a dogeared corner on it (seven of cups, a pair of women -- one dark haired, one blonde -- wearing the same mischevious grin). He held the card carefully and put the blade to the paper, intending to trim a long, thin slice from the edge. One quick movement, a flick of the wrist -- 

Pain ripped through his head and the scalpel fell to the floor with a metallic crack as he cried out. The world narrowed to the firebrand of agony behind his eyes and a single dot of light in his vision. He tried to move towards the stairs and couldn't see; he tumbled to the ground, groping blindly, pulling half a dozen dissection tools along with him. The crash echoed in his head like a thunderclap and he moaned. 

"Ianto?" a distant voice, and then suddenly booming in his ear, "Ianto! Sweetheart -- "

He curled up, away from the noise, away from the pain, pulling his body inwards as if he expected to be beaten. Oh god, it hurt -- 

There were more hands now, trying to help him upright, and the pain began to ebb slightly as he identified them. Gwen's, the smaller, on his arms, and Jack's huge broad palms tugging at his shoulders. 

When one of Jack's hands cupped his face it was like cold water poured on hot skin. The pain washed away, down into the back of his head. In one final blast that sent sparks dancing before his eyes, it was gone. He heaved a breath in, then another, and let himself be hauled to his feet. 

Gwen had one shoulder under his and her arm around his waist, supporting him. Jack was still cupping his face, staring into his eyes, checking them with a light. He blinked against it and steadied himself on Gwen.

"I'm okay," he gasped, catching Jack's wrist clumsily and forcing him to lower the light. "I'm okay."

"I knew this was a bad idea," Jack muttered, thumbs running over his jaw, down his throat, up behind his ear. "Focus on me, here, Ianto. You know where you are?"

"The Hub, medical bay," Ianto replied, still trying to catch his breath.

"You recognise me?"

He managed a weak smile. "Couldn't forget you, sir."

Relief washed over Jack's face. "Can you walk?"

"I think so...Gwen, not quite so tight..." Ianto said. Gwen gave him a sheepish look and released her death-grip on his waist, but she stayed with him up the steps to the sofa in the atrium. 

"Get the cards, lock them up," Jack said, and Gwen nodded and ran back to the medical bay. Jack sat next to him as he rested his elbows on his thighs and pushed the heels of his palms against his eyes. 

"What happened?" Jack asked, gently. 

"Don't know," Ianto answered. "I was finishing up a scan, thought I'd take a sample for some other tests. I started to cut a piece off one of the cards and it just -- hit me. Like someone put a spike right through my brain."

"How's it feel now?" Jack asked, running a hand up his neck, through the hair at the back of his head. 

"It's gone now. Hit and run," Ianto turned to give him a reassuring smile. "How long did it last?"

Jack frowned. "You were on the floor of the medical bay for almost five minutes. When Gwen couldn't get you to move she had to call me."

"Felt like five years. I couldn't see," Ianto admitted, as Gwen reappeared with a locking containment box in each hand. She set them on the tech desk, locked half the deck in each, and came to sit on the table in front of the sofa. 

"All right, love?" she asked. 

"I'm fine now," Ianto said, though he didn't think he sounded very convincing. "Couple of bruises, probably. I should clean up, all the tools will need to be re-sterilised."

"Stay here," Jack ordered. "Rest for a few minutes. Gwen, stay with him. I need to get the file I was working on in the archives. I'll be back soon."

"All right, Jack," Gwen answered, settling in next to Ianto. She took one of his hands and held it in her lap, fingers kneading his palm gently. "Feeling better now?" she asked, as Jack disappeared into the archives.

"Yeah. That was...strange," Ianto said, trying to look anywhere but at the containment boxes. 

"You think...they did it?" she asked, tipping her head in that direction.

"Dunno. Don't want to think about it," he added, squeezing her hand in his. "Thanks."

"For being totally useless? You're welcome," she said, but she smiled as she said it.

"Not useless. You hauled me up all those stairs."

"And you're not a featherweight, you know," she laughed. "Glad you're all right."

"Me too," he said, and resolutely didn't look at the boxes some more.

***

Jack went back down into the archives reluctantly, unwilling to leave Ianto and Gwen for long but in need of the paperwork he'd left there. 

He was never lost in the archives, not anymore; the rambling network of file rooms and hallways wasn't intuitively easy to navigate, but most of it hadn't moved much in a hundred years. Ianto had mapped the most commonly-used level and tacked up copies at every door and every hallway intersection, with little red dots to mark location should one of the team get lost, but Jack knew almost instinctively where to go and how to get there. 

On the far side of the main storage room was a partitioned office where the full-time archivist used to work, back when they had one. Behind the partition was a door, which led to a hall that snaked counterclockwise around the main room and branched off to the right. Three small rooms were here, one of them bricked over (Willa had died there while he was away at one of the wars, and nobody had ever been able to go in there again without the chills). The second, incongruously, housed a small kitchen where Ianto sometimes ate if he was in the archives long enough -- not lately, with two agents down and them often run off their feet for days at a time. The third room was, usually, padlocked. 

Theoretically Ianto could have picked the lock. He was clever enough. The fact that he hadn't spoke less to a lack of curiosity than it did to a surplus of discpline. 

Jack pulled the door open, gathered up the papers that were laid out on a workbench inside, and closed the ancient file cabinets he'd been rifling when Gwen called him up. He rested a forehead against the smooth enameled metal for a moment and then left, padlocking the door behind him. 

Up in the atrium, Gwen and Ianto were still sitting on the sofa, talking quietly, colour beginning to come back into Ianto's pain-ashened face. Jack skipped up the few steps to the platform and gestured for them to stay where they were, sitting on the table to face them. He glanced at Gwen, who smiled, and then at Ianto, whose eyes were tracking the folder in his hands. 

"Research," Jack said. " _My_ research. This is the girl you saw today?" he asked, passing Ianto an elderly, yellowing photograph. Him and Bertram and Guy, smiling for the camera, oblivious to the pale, dark-eyed girl seated at a table behind them. She was aware, though -- she stared into the camera solemnly. "I only saw the back of her head on the video."

"That's her," Ianto confirmed, handling the photo carefully by the edges. "When was this taken?"

"1962," Jack said. "The first time I met her was in 1898."

"She's aged well," Ianto drawled. 

"How is this possible, Jack?" Gwen asked. "Is she somehow related to you?"

Jack shook his head. "Not that I know of. I don't know much about her. I did a profile years ago." He took another sheet of paper out of the folder, this one just beginning to yellow and flake. Records were so ephemeral. He could remember it, crisp and new from Torchwood's pride and joy, a Xerox 9700 printer, top of the line in 1977. The profile itself was mostly I Don't Know and Maybe, with a strong warning that anyone who wanted to approach the girl should go through him. He may not have led Torchwood at the time, but seniority lent a bit of authority to his position and very few people in Cardiff were willing to cross him by then. Ianto accepted the report, and Jack pulled a much newer pamphlet out of the folder, offering it to Gwen. 

"St. Mary's Church?" she asked, frowning at it. "This was part of the file on..."

"Owen," Ianto said quietly. "When you brought him back with the glove."

"The cost of resurrection," Jack agreed, shoulders tensing at the memory -- the tang of metal in his mouth when he brought Owen back, the fear and worry of his team, Owen's own rightful fury...

"I don't understand, Jack," Gwen said. 

"In the fifteenth century, Death was unleashed on the world," Jack said. "He had to claim thirteen victims in order to become physically manifest and walk the Earth."

"He claimed twelve, came back for a thirteenth when we -- " Ianto paused. "Oh."

"Oh what?" Gwen asked. 

"The original reason Death was released on Earth was that a priest revived a young girl who'd died of the plague," Jack said. "Faith."

Gwen's eyes grew round. "The girl who gave you the cards."

"I didn't know her name until we dug deeper after we brought Owen back," Jack admitted. Gwen involuntarily glanced towards the medical bay, as if expecting the glove to come creeping out of it again. "That was Faith -- the girl who died five hundred years ago."

"But if she's dead -- really dead now, I mean, for good -- what does that mean?" Gwen asked.

"Don't know," Jack said. 

"Do you think it's Death's thirteenth victim?" Ianto asked in a low, worried voice.

"I think we'd have seen more fireworks by now. Might be, might be something else entirely." Jack sighed. "Not enough intel. This file is what information I have, and after a hundred years it's all I have. You can see why I wish we could lock those cards up in the archives with a not-for-use seal."

"Why don't we?" Gwen asked.

"Because if she gave these to me there's a reason, and if she's dead it's a big reason," Jack answered. "We need to understand what they are, and what she's trying to tell us."

"Might be able to help with that," Ianto said, pushing himself off the sofa. "A start, anyway. Gwen, the printouts...?"

"Left them on the printer," she said, and Ianto gathered up the thin stack of paper, returning and offering it to Jack -- content to stand next to the sofa now, despite Gwen's gentle tug to urge him to sit down again. Jack gave them both a small smile, and paged through the information Ianto had gathered before he'd fallen over. 

"Huh," Jack said. "That's...weird."

"Yes," Ianto agreed. 

"I think I might -- "

He was interrupted by a blare of noise from one of the computers. 

"Never get to finish a damn sentence anymore," he muttered, as Ianto crossed to the monitor. "Rift activity?"

"No," Ianto said, with the uncertain lilt that meant he was puzzled. "Temporal disturbance."

"Serious?" Gwen asked, rising to join him. Jack set the folder down and followed her, leaning over Ianto's shoulder. 

"I'm...not sure." Ianto's fingers danced over the keys, calling up readouts -- clumsier than Tosh's smooth information flow had been, but doing his best. "It's like a black spot. Scan just picked it up, might have been there a while."

"Let me see," Jack commanded, and Ianto stepped aside. 

There it was, a dead zone in their scans -- like an absence on the temporal level, a hole in time. A little smaller than a car, on the west coast of Wales, south of Cardigan Bay. 

"What _is_ that?" Gwen asked. 

"It's a temporal no-fly zone," Jack answered. "Time doesn't exist there."

"Time can't just stop existing in one spot," Ianto said, frowning. "Well, ordinarily, I mean," he added, when Jack shot him a look. 

"It takes a lot of energy to forge something like that," Jack said.

"There's no heat signature nearby for any kind of fuel..." Gwen studied the screen. 

"Looks like the Tarot's going to have to wait." Jack flipped the lock on the containment boxes and keyed them to his strap. "Ianto, how's the head?"

"Clear enough," Ianto said, and looked as if he meant it. Gwen was already strapping on her gun and shoving equipment into a bag. Jack ran into his office to grab his gun and found Ianto waiting with his coat when he emerged.

"Meet you on the Plass," Ianto began, but Jack shook his head.

"I'll bring the car up. You and Gwen take the lift," he answered. "Take the cards with you, I don't want them out of our sight."

Ianto nodded curtly and swung away towards the lift, collecting the boxes on the way. He handed one to Gwen, joining her on the stone. 

"I don't like this," Gwen said, as Jack started the lift on its ascent. 

"Yeah, we should put some railings on it. Someone's bound to fall off one day," Ianto answered. Jack chuckled. 

"Small holes in time usually don't stay small," Gwen insisted, but she smiled first. 

"We'll find it and fix it," Jack called up to her. "I know a few tricks."

He turned away before she could answer, heading for the garage and the SUV. 

That was the problem with being a leader in a job like theirs. You had to lie all the damn time.

***

_The Hanged Man: Card is labeled **III. The Hanged Man** despite the Hanged Man usually being the twelfth card. Twelfth card of this deck is "The Sun" (see note to card XII). The Hanged Man indicates sacrifice, but also conformity, passive surrender, and apathy. _

_Card shows an unidentified orange planet. Space is indicated as a black background with gold curlicue and spike patterns. Patterns do not resemble any known constellations visible from Earth._

***

Once they'd left the stranger in the spare room, Meredith sat down at the kitchen table and had the full story from Ellen, commiserating on the loss of the parafoil and reminding her that most everyone in the area would know it was hers if they found it. Afterward, his accounts forgotten, Meredith found himself straying inevitably back to the doorway of the stranger's room.

"Why haven't we called the police?" Ellen asked, as he leaned in the doorway.

"Doesn't seem right," Meredith answered. "Man asked us not to. And he's not..."

Ellen looked up at him as he struggled for words. She nodded -- she understood. 

"Just let him rest a while," Meredith concluded. On the bed, the stranger arched his back, as if straining against something, and rolled over onto his side. His mouth fell open just enough to see a flash of even white teeth -- and then an odd spark of gold light, there and gone so quickly that in the next moment Meredith thought he must have imagined it. 

"He needs a name," Ellen said, leaning into her father. 

"Oh aye? What'll you call him, then?" Meredith asked, a little amused. She considered it.

"Lu Ban," she said. Meredith chuckled. "Lou for short."

"Lu Ban, our guest," he agreed. "Come on, let Lou get some sleep."

***

Jack drove. Gwen, with her usual care, took the backseat so that Ianto could sit with Jack; once they were outside Cardiff Jack risked a glance over at him. He still hadn't fully regained his colour, but when he caught Jack looking he smiled reassuringly.

"Sure you're okay?" Jack asked. 

"No pain," Ianto said. "Little fuzzy-headed, but I reckon that's the adrenaline talking."

Jack gave him a nod and turned back to the road. Gwen was clicking away at a keyboard in the back-seat, and after a few minutes she cleared her throat.

"Jack, there's a satellite passing directly over the coast south of Cardigan Bay," she said. "It'll have images of the area, I think."

"Can you get in and grab some?" he asked. She gave him a sardonic look in the rearview mirror. "Good. Do it."

"First image is coming up..." she was silent for a moment. "Erm. It looks a bit like an outhouse."

"There's a temporal disturbance in an outhouse?" Ianto asked, with his _my job will never be as glamourous as I think_ look. 

"Should have brought waders," Jack remarked.

"There's wellies in the boot," Ianto replied. Jack looked at him. "What? I keep a spare set for emergencies."

"Second image..." Gwen trailed off. In the rearview mirror, her face was a mixture of horror and realisation. 

"What is it?" Jack prompted. 

"Sending forward," Gwen said. Ianto took out his PDA and called up the image. 

"Oh, bugger," he said, and offered it to Jack.

Jack glanced down, saw the unmistakable shape of the TARDIS, one of its CALL BOX signs easily visible, and then looked back up at the road and picked up speed. 

"Third image," Gwen called. "Definitely the TARDIS."

Ianto's PDA beeped once, then began to beep steadily.

"UNIT's noticed," he said. "I'm picking up a lot of chatter. Gwen!" he said, tossing her the cord to a headset. She plugged it into the computer across the way and began tapping on the other keyboard. Jack drummed his hands impatiently on the wheel, then flicked on the blue flasher-lights and began swerving around the few cars on the road as Ianto listened in on UNIT communications.

"UNIT says they've located a disturbance -- "

"Oh, I bet they have," Jack retorted.

" -- and they're on their way."

"Tell them Torchwood's dealing with it," Jack snapped. 

"Already done," Ianto's hands worked the PDA furiously. "UNIT's saying it's out of our jurisdiction."

"The hell it is!" Jack roared. Ianto and Gwen both glanced at him. "Tell them it's ours under charter and to stand the hell down. I'm not having a repeat of that spatial-door shit in London."

"They're not listening." Ianto flicked a button to clear the screen. "But they're sending a team out of London and they'll need time to mobilise. We'll beat them there."

"Let Sarah Jane Smith know the Doctor's here," Jack said. "Get Martha on the phone if you can."

"She's out of comm," Ianto said. Jack frowned. "UNIT dispatch to India, touring the rural areas. Even if she could get phone calls more than once or twice a week, she'd never get back here in time."

"Fourth image," Gwen said. "Last one. The door's open, Jack."

"What door?"

"To the TARDIS." 

"Message sent to Sarah Jane," Ianto said. "I'll call ahead to the locals and see about getting a lorry if we have to snatch it."

"Can't be anything too wrong if he's left it open, right?" Gwen asked.

"Nothing wrong, or everything wrong," Jack said grimly. "Knowing the Doctor -- "

"Expect it to be everything," Ianto finished for him. 

***

_The Hierophant: Card is labeled **IV. The Hierophant** although the Hierophant is normally the fifth card. The Hierophant represents education, knowledge, maturity; often portrayed as a teacher or religious authority figure. _

_Card shows a brown-haired woman seated at an advanced computer console. Suspect this may represent Sarah Jane Smith, former companion of the Doctor (see file on Smith, SJ, and also Smith, L, Dependant). Console is gold with many decorative accents; note for comparison to screen-capture images of "Mr. Smith"._

***

"Mum," Luke Smith said, and then again, "Mum!"

Sarah Jane looked up at him. "Yes, Luke?"

Luke gestured with his butter-knife at her teacup, which was overflowing into the saucer. With a start, she tipped the teapot back and hastily set both down. 

"I don't know where my head is today," she said, sighing and seating herself at the little table in the attic. She really should relax; she was between jobs, Luke was keeping out of trouble, and all was momentarily right with the world in the Smith household. In the background, Mr. Smith was a barely audible hum as he monitored news and telephone communications. Luke, peacefully eating a scone, had two books open on the table.

"Anything wrong?" he asked. She sighed.

"I had a dream last night, that's all," she answered. 

"Dreams are a subconscious way of working out problems and relieving the stress of social interaction -- " Luke began, but stopped when she smiled gently. "You know that."

"Yes, but thank you for the reminder."

"Psychology textbooks suggest it's good to talk about them...?" he ventured. "Unless it's, erm. Private," he added, and blushed a little. Oh, Luke -- growing up too fast, and lately interested in things like putting styling gel in his hair and the methodology of adolescent dating rituals. 

"Nothing like that." She smiled. "Just...it was about the Doctor, actually."

Luke lifted an eyebrow.

"Honestly!" she insisted. "I just dreamed that I was talking to the Doctor, but not any version of him I'd ever seen. Young -- very young. It's strange to think of the Doctor being a young man."

"Stranger to think of him being a young woman," Luke said with a grin. Sarah Jane laughed. 

"Well, he's not either, not really. I don't know much about how that sort of thing worked, for his race...I suppose I could ask him sometime, he does tend to pop up more often these days. Not exactly the moment for it, last time I saw him."

"If we do see him again I have a lot of questions for him about temporal stability and force and gravity shielding," Luke remarked. Sarah Jane ruffled his hair. 

"He'd take to you in a heartbeat. Already has, unless I miss my guess."

"Sarah Jane," Mr. Smith interrupted, a hint of apology in his smooth, even tone. "I have an incoming e-mail for you."

She turned to look at the makeshift console against the wall, curiously. "And?"

"It's from Torchwood."

"Torchwood!" Luke said excitedly. Sarah Jane gave him a quelling look -- she had no fondness for people with that many guns, and Luke was far too interested in them by half for her peace of mind -- then stood and walked to the console. 

"I can play it aloud if you like," Mr. Smith said serenely. 

"Go on then," Sarah Jane said. "What's Cheeky Jack got for us?"

Mr. Smith's voice, deep and calming, filled the room. After a second, she sat down again; Luke put down his butter knife and listened intently, head cocked. When it was finished, they looked at each other, then ran for the car. 

***

Torchwood, such as it was, didn't speak for much of the drive to the coast, Gwen busy pulling up any research she could on the area, Ianto monitoring the UNIT chatter and providing tense updates on their progress every so often. He'd put in a call to Martha, too, for what good it would do, but a young man on the other end of the line had said they didn't expect her to report in anytime soon.

"Is this usual, for the TARDIS?" Ianto finally ventured, as they slowed slightly to pass through St. Dogmaels. "Left up ahead."

"No," Jack replied, tyres squealing a little as he took the corner tightly. "I've tracked every confirmable appearance he made in the twentieth century. Normally the TARDIS isn't even a blip, unless something goes wrong."

"Heartening," Ianto murmured sarcastically. "I love it when something goes wrong."

"Might just be a malfunction. Why would he land on the coast of Wales?" Gwen asked. "I mean, up at the cliff edge like that?"

"Right up ahead, left when we hit the coastal road," Ianto interjected. 

"He's never been the best pilot," Jack said. "This one time, we were trying to..." he trailed off, because he could almost hear Gwen's interest perking. Ianto, next to him, merely gave him an inquiring look. "Well. He doesn't always land where he's trying to land. A TARDIS isn't a one-man ship, usually. It's a miracle he can fly her at all."

"Why does he, do you suppose?" Gwen asked. 

"Wouldn't you?" Jack said. "For the chance to see all of time and space?" 

"Maybe," Gwen said, her voice doubtful. "But it doesn't seem to make him very happy, does it? I mean, from what you've said."

"Maybe that's why he keeps looking," Ianto said quietly.

Jack kept his eyes resolutely on the road. 

In another few minutes they'd reached the coast, the cliffs dropping away on their right as they drove south along it. Ianto, head buried in the sensor readings, called out "Up ahead!" a few seconds after Jack spotted the blue column in the distance. Gwen reached forward and tipped Ianto's chin up, grinning. 

"Oh," Ianto said, and then, "It's smaller than I thought it'd be."

"Bigger on the inside," Jack muttered. "What's the ETA on UNIT?"

"I'd say just under an hour. They're moving fast," Ianto replied. "They're on radio silence now, though. Lorry's standing by in St. Dogmaels if we need it."

"Good." They pulled to a sharp stop at the shoulder of the road, and Jack grabbed Ianto's wrist before he could get out. "Guns drawn," he said, glancing over his shoulder at Gwen. They both nodded and slipped their weapons from their holsters. 

The TARDIS looked...sickly, dull, without the usual glow that Jack always associated with her. She stood on the edge of a cliff like a suicidal heroine from some old novel, even if she faced inwards. One of the double-doors was open. When they were close enough, Jack held up a hand for them to stop, then edged forward and put a cautious hand on the other door. 

"Oh, honey," he whispered, feeling for the _sense_ of her. A twenty-first century mind couldn't encompass the touch of the TARDIS, beyond a usual feeling of contentment and safety, but he'd been able to get a little more when he'd traveled with the Doctor. He'd always thought of her as a cheerful, middle-aged woman with a bright smile. Now she felt tired and old, and barely responded at all to his touch. This was not the TARDIS he'd known.

"She's so old," he said, hardly conscious he'd spoken the words aloud. "It feels like she's dying."

"Dying?" Gwen asked.

"Was she alive?" Ianto added. Jack gave them a sharp look. 

"Of course she was," he said indignantly. Ianto shrugged.

"We weren't to know," he pointed out. Jack eased her other door open and peered inside. 

The interior, also, was not the one he'd known. It was dark, almost too dark to see, the walls covered in vines and rough, hairy-barked branches. There was a feeble illumination from the centre console, but that was all, and a sense of hopelessness from her core almost overwhelmed him.

"Doctor?" he called. No answer. "Doctor, it's Jack."

"Jack, we should -- " Gwen started, but Jack shook his head.

"I'll go in alone. If there's something...there, it can't hurt me," he replied. "Keep an eye out for UNIT. Stay on comms. If the box disappears, wait for UNIT."

"Disappears -- " Ianto objected, but Jack had stepped inside and he could almost feel both of them holding their breath.

He half-expected the doors to slam shut, or the familiar groan of her engines, but there was nothing. Just the breeze from outside blowing past him, scattering branches and leaves onto a floor already lined with soft, short grass -- more furry than grassy, really.

Underneath the new decor, though, he could feel the same shape of the control room, the gantries and the tall coralesque branches still in place. This was still _his_ TARDIS -- well, the Doctor's TARDIS, but his in the sense that he had once traveled here. This was where he'd stood and watched the Doctor dance with Rose, and this was where he'd been when he'd helped pilot Earth back into orbit. This was where he was that time Rose flung custard at him for making a lewd pass at the Doctor...here was where he'd stripped down once when he'd been trying to help fix a faulty circuit and accidentally caught his trousers on fire...

But they were only memory-echoes in his own head. There was almost nothing from the TARDIS herself. No noise either, and no movement. 

"Doctor?" he called, again, though he already knew it was stupid. He leaned through one of the doorways. "Anyone?"

He found a penlight in his coat-pocket and shone it down the corridor.

"Jack," Ianto's voice in his earpiece, nervous, questioning.

"Just doing a little exploring," Jack answered. "I'm going to see what I can see. Might be a while."

"Are you sure?" Gwen asked. 

"I'll be fine. Let me know if you get any new information," Jack said, and took a few steps down the hall. Past Rose's bedroom -- the knob, an old-fashioned one straight out of the twentieth century, was locked -- and past the room he'd used, with no door at all because hell, who had the time or energy to care if other people saw you naked? He peeked in quickly, but the tacks he'd used to hang photos on the walls were just spots of rust, half-hidden by vegetation, and the photos were long since dissolved to dust. 

Past the little kitchen, past more and more doorways, the hall twisting and turning but never _changing_ , not as it had done once -- the rooms didn't move. If he stopped and wished to see the conservatory with all its alien plants, it didn't suddenly spring up at the next turn of the hall. 

When he finally did find it, after a diligent search, he could have wept. All of the plants were dead, except for a few, brown (or pink or yellow) and dying. 

There was no other explanation for it. The Doctor must be sick, or dead, or lost somehow to his ailing TARDIS. And there was nothing Jack could do. 

***

_The Tower: Card is labeled **V. The Tower**. Ordinarily The Tower (also called The House Of God) is the sixteenth card in the deck. This deck does not extend beyond thirteen cards for the Major Arcana or "Trump" suit. The Tower indicates chaos, sudden change, ruin, the fall of pride, and the emergence of truth._

_Card shows a structure identified as Torchwood Tower, a building in London now no longer existent, the former headquarters of the Torchwood Institute. Fire is seen in the upper floors. The sky behind the tower is deep gold._

_It should be noted that a parallel appears to be emerging between the beginning and ending cards of the suit. Forming around the axis of Card VII (see note), the cards on either side appear to mirror each other. The Tower is mirrored by The Star, which in this case shows a highly recognisable rendition of the TARDIS (see file, Doctor, The). This is also noticeable in the dual planets showing on cards III (unidentified) and XI (The Earth), as well as some others._

***

Not far from their destination, Sarah Jane and Luke ran into a UNIT convoy. There were several large transports, some obviously carrying troops, and a couple of land-rovers, all in a long string and all headed in the same direction she was. 

She had some respect for UNIT, but very little love for what they were now -- or perhaps they were still what they had been, but she had changed. Didn't matter, really. She didn't know Torchwood very well, beyond some conversation with Jack and a few brief glimpses of his team, and she should like them even less, secretive and manipulative as they were. But Torchwood, she knew, was made of people -- Cheeky Jack Harkness, a tired-looking young woman, and a solemn young man. UNIT was not really made of people. It was component parts, like its name, and the functioning of the machine could be terrifying. She was glad Torchwood had apparently got there first. 

"Right, Luke," she said, giving him a brave smile. "Ready to outrun the military?"

Luke's grin was more sincere. "Punch it, Mum!" 

Sarah Jane took out the sonic lipstick, pointed it at the spedometer, and braced herself as the little Nissan began to purr and pick up speed. Soon they were passing the UNIT convoy so fast that the cars and the logos on the sides and the soldiers in the cabs all blended together in a blur. Luke let out an enthusiastic whoop. 

They were well past UNIT's visual range when the Nissan began to sputter and moan, a sure sign that the engine was losing the effect of the sonic lipstick and they were in dire need of petrol. 

"That'll show 'em," Sarah Jane said, pulling with well-earned satisfaction into a petrol station. Luke jumped out, leaned back in through the window for money, and pumped the petrol while she took out her mobile and dialed the number she'd been given in the email to Mr. Smith. 

"Ianto Jones," a smooth voice with just a slight quaver of anxiety answered.

"Mr. Jones," she said, as Luke leaned on the car and listened. "This is Sarah Jane Smith."

She could almost hear his posture improve. "Good to hear from you, ma'am. I see you got our message."

"I did. I'm already in Wales. Passed a UNIT convoy just now."

"Yes, we were aware they're on their way. About how far out would you say, ma'am?"

"Twenty minutes, perhaps? We're about ten from the location you gave me," she said, and then added, "Call me Sarah Jane." 

"As you like, Sarah Jane. Gwen's notifying Jack, we appreciate the information."

"Any sign of the Doctor, yet?" she asked, trying to keep the almost pathetic hope out of her voice.

"Well..." he hesitated. "We're not certain. We've found the TARDIS. The door was open. No sign of him yet, but Jack may have found him. He's inside. He doesn't seem happy about this."

"What's wrong? The Doctor isn't always at home, you know," she chided gently.

"So I understand, ma -- Sarah Jane," he corrected hastily, "but Jack seems to think the TARDIS isn't quite well." 

"oh dear," she said, worry rising. Luke gave her a questioning look. "We'll be there as soon as we can."

"Might not be wise. There's bound to be words when UNIT arrives. Jurisdictional issues between us and them. Can I suggest...?"

"Suggest away," she replied. Outside, Luke disengaged the pump and returned it to its rack. 

"St. Dogmaels isn't far from here. I've booked rooms for us at the Abbey Inn there, I can call and book you one as well. If the Doctor's gone looking for civilisation, it's closest."

She nodded. "We're at the edge of St. Dogmaels now. He's generally not hard to find, if you keep a keen eye out."

"Just so, Sarah Jane." He sounded relieved.

"Very well. Book two more rooms. I'll call if I've found him, you call once you've sorted UNIT."

"Two?" he asked, as she was about to hang up.

"Sarah Jane and Luke Smith," she explained, and hit _end_. Luke climbed back into the car.

"Find the Doctor?" he asked. 

She shook her head. "They don't know where he is. We're off on a bit of a manhunt."

"Can't be too hard," Luke said, with all the confidence of the young. "Like you said. He turns up sooner or later."

"That's what worries me," she sighed, and disengaged the parking brake.

***

"Jack."

Gwen'd voice in his earpiece brought Jack out of his reverie; he'd been stroking one of the plants in the conservatory, the wide leaves curling under his touch, weakly twining around his fingers. 

"Yes," he said crisply, turning away, his hand still tangled in the fronds.

"Ianto's just had a call from Ms. Smith. UNIT's less than half an hour away."

Jack glanced at the plant, then closed his eyes. "Okay. I'm coming out. I don't think he's here."

"Might be in St. Dogmaels," Ianto, a little breathless. "Sarah Jane's there now, I asked her to stay in town and try to find him."

"Good idea."

"Jack..." Ianto trailed off. Jack lifted the pot with the plant in it.

"Yeah?"

"She's brought her son along."

"Really," Jack said, as he made his way out of the conservatory. "Well, that's going to make things interesting. Makes sense, though."

"Why's that?" Ianto asked, as Jack retraced his steps along the springy, furry turf. 

"Well, if you had a kid, wouldn't you want him to meet the Doctor?" Jack asked.

"Heaven forfend," Ianto said drily, "but yes."

"You never know," Jack said with a grin. "You've got good hips for childbearing."

"You are so strange sometimes," Ianto replied.

"Well, _I'm_ not carrying the kid. Be there in ten."

"Acknowledged," Ianto said, and went off-comm. Jack picked up his speed a little. 

Just outside the control room was a small alcove with a shelf built into it. Rose used to laugh at Jack, who used it as a catch-all, emptying his pockets there after every trip. _Nice to know they still have hall tables in the fifty-first century,_ she'd said. Now it was almost overgrown, but Jack pushed aside some hanging vines and stroked the empty shelf gently.

"Baby, you know I'd never hurt you," he whispered to the wall. "Come on, just one little favour for me."

There was a rumble and a moan, and a glow, and then a small key was resting on the shelf. Jack kissed the wall.

"Love you, sweetheart," he said. "We're gonna fix this, promise."

Probably another lie, but he didn't care. He took the key, jogged across the control room, and emerged into the sunlight once more. Gwen noticed first, gave him an eyeballing over the potted alien fern under one arm, and then tugged on Ianto's sleeve. 

"No luck," Jack announced as they approached. He gave the fern to Ianto, who held it warily at arm's length. The fronds rubbed Ianto's wrists. "He's not in there. No body, at least," he added, turning to close the TARDIS doors. He locked them with the key and dropped it into his pocket, then turned and accepted the clingy fern back from Ianto, carrying it to the SUV. 

"What did you see?" Gwen asked. Jack set the pot carefully in the backseat and shook his head. 

"Either she's been abandoned for a long time, or he hasn't been caring for her," he said. "Leafy here was one of the last survivors. There used to be a whole forest in there..."

"Is it dangerous?" Ianto asked, looking like he was ready to shoot the fern at the first sign of aggression. 

"Nope. Just affectionate," Jack said. "We can re-pot it at Torchwood if we have to."

"Goes in, braves possible rampaging monsters, saves a fern," Ianto said. 

"We save what we can," Jack replied grimly. Then he looked past Gwen's shoulder, to the northern stretch of the road. There was a blur on the horizon. "That's UNIT. Game faces on, kids."

The convoy pulled up to the SUV, the first few vehicles passing it and stopping at an angle off the road, almost surrounding the TARDIS and its three protectors. One of the Land Rovers halted not far away, and a trim man with a general's stars on his uniform climbed out.

"I'll talk to him," Jack said, and walked across the stretch of open ground, meeting the UNIT man halfway. 

"Captain Harkness," the man said. "General Alfred Fitz."

"Calling out the big guns, huh?" Jack asked, offering his hand. Fitz ignored it. 

"You were warned the TARDIS is not in your jurisdiction," he replied. "Now I'm going to have my people confiscate and transport it."

"So this is, what, the old battlefield meeting?" Jack asked. "The commanders taking tea together before they send the men over the hill?"

"No need to be so dramatic, Captain," Fitz said, but his smug smile faltered.

"Torchwood's charter," Jack retorted. "If it's alien, it's ours."

"That might have worked back when Torchwood was in London, but it's hardly applicable now. UNIT doesn't answer to Torchwood Three. What are you going to do, Captain, fend us off with two kids and an SUV?" Fitz asked. 

"Well, I could get the queen on the phone and see what she says," Jack replied, producing his mobile. Fitz's smile dimmed another few degrees. 

"You don't want to make an incident of this, Captain."

"I think I do, General. The TARDIS is empty. And locked."

"Then how do you know it's empty?"

Jack grinned. "Who do you think locked it, Alfred? Can I call you Alf?"

"We can take the TARDIS by force," the other man threatened.

"Yeah, but you'll never get inside. So basically you'll have a useless blue box on your hands."

"Where is the Doctor, Captain Harkness?"

Jack shrugged. "Hell if I know, Alf. He wasn't here when we arrived."

Fitz seemed to think about this. 

"UNIT will grant you custody of the TARDIS," he said finally. "If we are allowed free rein in a concerted manhunt for the Doctor."

"And why are you so interested in finding the Doctor, hm?" Jack asked.

"Interstellar research," Fitz said casually. "Always good to know where the man is."

"Mmhm. And I'm just a civil servant," Jack replied. "UNIT got some problem with the Doctor I need to know about?"

"Not that _you need to know about_ ," Fitz replied, in an almost mocking tone. "You can't stop us, Harkness."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Alf."

"You're not to leave the area. We're locking down this whole part of the county."

"La dee dah," Jack said. "See you in town, I guess. IANTO!"

"SIR," Ianto called, straightening up. 

"Liase with General Fitz's assistant regarding the TARDIS and our information-sharing policies," Jack said, as Ianto joined them. "Alf, toss Ianto over to your people, he'll give you our details. Agent Cooper's heading back into St. Dogmaels to get the flatbed, we're confiscating the TARDIS now."

"And you, Captain?" Fitz asked pointedly.

"Oh, I'll keep an eye on the old girl until Gwen gets back, help wave your boys off, all that," Jack replied, as Ianto followed a young man off to one of the Land Rovers. "By the way, I hear you got passed by a Nissan Figaro on your way in. Pick up your game, Alf."

He left Fitz sputtering and went back to tell Gwen to take the SUV into town. 

*** 

_The Hermit: Card is labeled **VI. The Hermit** and, as with many other cards in the deck, is disordered (The Hermit is usually card IX). It represents silence, introspection, isolation, and understanding borne of experience. _

_Card shows an unidentified man in a cowl, holding a lantern. Card has been marked for microscopic examination. Should be noted that if the mirror theory holds this card is parallel to VIII. Strength, depicting Gwen Cooper._

***

When UNIT was finally gone and Ianto had the contact information for the General's assistant in his PDA, he found Jack sitting on the south-facing side of the TARDIS, back propped against her grey, sad-looking wall. Jack waved him over and patted the grass next to him, still absently staring out at the Atlantic off to their right. 

"All taken care of?" he asked. 

"Mainly," Ianto said. "I couldn't get much out of anyone. I don't think they want to say hello and offer the Doctor a biscuit, though."

"Me either. Who's he been pissing off? Last I heard, they were on good terms with him."

Ianto shrugged. "New administration, perhaps. Or they've been hearing things we haven't. We don't have all their sources. I can try breaking into UNIT's mainframe, but remoting into our mainframe's going to mean a delay. Might take a while."

"Don't bother. Anything they have on him is going to be eyes-only hardcopy or off the servers," Jack sighed. Ianto leaned back against the smooth, slightly-warm outside of the TARDIS. He supposed, properly, it should be considered a hull. "We have to find him before they do."

"Sarah Jane's very good at what she does," Ianto offered. "If he's nearby, she'll probably find him."

"Yeah," Jack said. 

"But?" Ianto prompted.

"But he might not be nearby," Jack answered, looking down at his bent knees. Ianto marveled, as always, at how the mere mention of the Doctor could turn the Captain into a sulky, unloved five-year-old. "I think she came here to die. Which means he's dying too, or already dead. A TARDIS can live as long as their pilot does...but I don't think they can live without one. Not for long."

"It's a pretty place for it," Ianto observed, aware this was not the most consoling thing he could have said. Jack snorted a bitter laugh.

"Yeah. I suppose so."

"Gwen'll be back soon," he continued. "We'll get it on the flatbed and get out of here. I've arranged storage in St. Dogmaels, but I can take it through to Cardiff tonight if you like."

Jack shook his head. "I want us to stick together. We keep it here until we know he can't be found."

Ianto glanced at him and then very cautiously raised his arm. Jack paused, then ducked under it and rested his head on Ianto's shoulder. Ianto tilted his own head so that he could press his face to Jack's hair, looking over the top of it to the water below. They stayed that way until a distant rumble told them that Gwen had returned with the lorry, to take them into town. 

***

_Justice: Card is labeled **VII. Justice**. Justice is usually either card VIII or card XI. Justice indicates objectivity, coldness, lack of passion, severity, and reason. _

_Card is black-and-white monochrome in stark contrast to the rest of the deck. It shows a clearly identifiable Dalek._

***

The skies were already filling around Earth when she arrived. 

Most of them were easily evading the puny, primitive satellite technology that would have told the humans they were there. Those that had no such resources were hiding behind other ships, crowding like little fish around big whales. There was a lot of cross-species gossip, none of which she paid the slightest attention to. She responded to their hails with a curt message that sent the nearest ships skittering away through space, giving her a wide berth. The Shadow Proclamation, some of them said, was already on its way. She didn't even bother to respond with her disdain. Others warned her that landing on Earth would be signing her own death-warrant. She didn't respond to those either, but she did smile.

The ship flared briefly as it entered the atmosphere, its bronze-coloured hull creating a flash that would still be almost invisible by day, and it was day where she was going, which was all that really mattered. More noise, this time from Earth itself; pathetic little humans demanding, in four separate languages, that she identify herself. She dodged their radar and disappeared from their screens, leaving them to argue amongst themselves what she had been. 

She set down, not long after, in a field outside a lonely coastal town. Earth's atmosphere was confusing the signals, but it was absolutely obvious that the TARDIS, at least, was nearby. She tapped her bronze fingers on the console of the ship, then popped the hatch and emerged.

It would not do to go too close to the humans if she could avoid it. She might look like them a little -- two legs, two arms, one cranial case resting atop a central column, but there the resemblance ended. The majority of her body was bronzed like her ship, the joints of the armour picked out with small, round protrusions of gold. Even then she could have worn something over the armour, but there was no hiding her head. The protective bronze casing covered all but the left side of her face, no hat in the world would hide the two blinking lights set like horns into it, and, where her one visible eye should be, there was the black lens of a Dalek eyestalk. 

Still, her single nostril flared as she inhaled, and the corner of her mouth tilted up in a smile. She could smell the artron radiation already, faint but present. She would find him. 

Resolutely, she set off into the empty fields. Someone would know where he was. 

***

Luke got his first real and proper look at Captain Jack Harkness while he was scouting out the ruins of St. Dogmaels Abbey. Mum, after ascertaining that the police and emergency services knew nothing, had gone off to canvass and told him to explore and keep a keen eye out. If he saw UNIT soldiers he was to duck behind something large until they passed, and if he saw anyone from Torchwood he was to call her at once.

He'd seen a bright burst of colour in the old ruined Abbey and gone to investigate; it looked like some kind of parachute, but it had a kite-line attached and after a little tugging he had almost managed to dislodge it. Probably nothing, of course, but someone would be looking for it. Luke had found, in his admittedly limited life-experience, that God (or whatever substitute you were looking for) was almost always in the details. 

In his defence, he didn't see Captain Harkness until after Captain Harkness saw him. He was tugging carefully on the string when a large hand reached into his line of vision and lifted the string slightly. The kite, if it was a kite, filled with air and jerked upwards; the hand twisted, snapping the line taut, and pulled it in deftly.

"Sometimes you need a little leverage," said a voice, and Luke turned to look up at the recognisable face of Captain Harkness, though Captain Harkness was looking at the kite and not at him. Luke ducked under the string and out of the way as the Captain pulled the kite in and offered it to him by one corner. 

"You must be Luke Smith," Captain Harkness said, as Luke clutched the kite in surprise. "Cap'n Jack Harkness," he added, offering a hand. 

"I know, sir," Luke said, shaking it.

"I'm flattered. That yours?" Captain Harkness asked, lifting an eyebrow and nodding at the kite. 

"No, I found it," Luke answered. "I thought..." and then he pondered, tongue-tied, how to vocalise that he didn't really think finding a kite would help find the Doctor, precisely, but that you had to pull on the loose strings of the universe or how would you get anywhere?

"Good eye," Captain Harkness said, and something told Luke that he _got_ it -- there was a disarming smile, quick as a flash and then gone. "Sarah Jane can't be too far away, then."

"She's canvassing," Luke said. 

"No luck so far?"

"No reports from emergency services, sir."

"Jack, kiddo," Captain Harkness -- Jack -- corrected. He looked up and away, across the grassy stretch of the Abbey. "Kind of a fixer-upper, isn't it?"

"Sorry?"

"The Abbey. I like a nice ruin, but I'm not too hot on monks. Well, actually, there was this time, but I don't kiss and tell."

"I think that's a lie," Luke offered. Jack chuckled.

"You're right, I kiss and tell all the time, but I don't think you're old enough to hear that kind of telling. Come on, inside. It's not safe to be on the streets of St. Dogmaels right now."

"Why not?" Luke asked as they set out for the nearest street. He was a little insulted to be told he wasn't old enough. After all, he'd had sex education at school and everything. 

"UNIT's locking the area down. Sooner or later there'll be house-to-house searches, unless I can pull a few strings. Hell, it might help, at this point," Jack added. "But they tend to be a little trigger happy."

"That's what Mum says about you," Luke pointed out. 

"Yeah, well, someone's got to carry the guns," Jack said absently. "Better me than you, huh?"

"Logical fallacy," Luke said. "If nobody carried guns, nobody'd need to."

"Try convincing the rest of the universe of that. Start with America, see how far you get," Jack replied, opening the door to the little inn Sarah Jane had checked into earlier. 

"Is my mum in any danger?" Luke asked, stopping in the doorway and turning. Jack tilted his head.

"From what I know, probably not, but I need to find her anyway. Stay here. My people are securing the TARDIS -- "

"Really?" Luke asked, excitement welling up. "You have it? It's in town? Can I see it?"

Jack held up his hands, innocently. "Hey. Not the dad, can't give permission. Once we know more, maybe. Right now, it's going under lock and key. Stay here," he repeated. "I'll send your mom back this way when I see her."

"You're giving a lot of orders for someone who's not the dad," Luke retorted. 

"You're pretty lippy for someone not carrying a gun," Jack answered in kind, but he grinned when he said it. "Put up with it, kid, I'm not the last person who's going to tell you what to do. Besides, I outrank you."

"How do you figure that?"

"Note the stripes," Jack said, pointing to his coat. "Captain trumps freelancer. Also, I'll tell your mother on you. Get inside."

Luke gave him a sullen look, but intellectually he knew that Jack was right: Sarah Jane wouldn't like it if he disobeyed the Captain. Well, not this time, anyway. With a roll of his eyes -- Clyde had advised him on eye-rolling when annoyed -- he turned and went inside. 

***

That evening, on the telly, one of the news broadcasters ran a story about St. Dogmaels. 

_"The Unified Intelligence Taskforce, a multinational military organisation, is combing the Welsh countryside tonight for signs of terrorist activity,"_ she said, and when she said _terrorist_ , Ellen sat straight up and looked at her father with fear-wide eyes. He supposed every generation had some defining enemy that scared the life out of them; Ellen had lived fully half her life hearing about Terrorists and the War On Terror. Meredith leaned forward as a sketch was flashed on the screen. " _If you have seen this man, or have any information as to his whereabouts..._ "

"Well, that looks nothing like Lou," he said reassuringly, hoping he sounded convincing. It didn't, after all; the man in the sketch was older, with narrow-set green eyes and a ponytail of ginger hair. "Besides, he's not very terrifying, is he?"

"Maybe we should call the police after all," Ellen said, worried.

"Maybe," Meredith allowed. "Does he scare you?"

She bit her lip. "No. But they do," she added, gesturing at the television screen. A group of young men and women in black uniforms and red berets were shown breaking down a door in some stock-footage, some other time and place. "What if they come here?"

"They're hardly going to arrest us for looking after a sick man," Meredith said. "Not exactly any word of what terrorism that bloke's supposed to have been committing, either. Or why the government wants him." 

"So?"

"So -- what have I taught you about the news?"

"If someone says it's classified, someone's being lied to," Ellen repeated, rolling her eyes.

Just then, the newscaster completed the short segment on it, finishing with, " _...UNIT officials inform us that the nature of the terrorism is classified, but that we have nothing to fear._ "

They looked at each other.

"I guess we could wait until morning," Ellen said slowly. 

"I'll try and talk to him tonight," Meredith assured her. "We'll lock him in the guest room, and in the morning we'll decide once and for all." 

Ellen seemed satisfied with this, and while it also satisfied her father he did feel a twinge of -- concern, perhaps, that a strange man would be spending the night in their house. If anything happened to Ellen, he'd never forgive himself. But the man was weak, hardly able to sit upright, and Meredith was a light sleeper. 

He sent Ellen up the stairs to her room, to (probably) read with a torch under the covers for a few hours, and went to the kitchen. Water in hand, he walked down the hall to check on their guest one last time. 

To his surprise, Lou was awake. He didn't seem able to speak, just watched Meredith with those large not-quite-brown eyes. 

"So," Meredith said conversationally. "You're a terrorist?"

A small smile curved Lou's lips. Meredith noticed that the scaly, dying skin he'd seen on the man's hand now reached upwards across the span of his throat, almost to his jaw. Lou shook his head, eyes tracking the glass of water now. 

Meredith slid an arm under the frail shoulders and helped him to sit up. He drank eagerly, but let the small sips be controlled by Meredith, holding the glass. When it was empty, he tried to speak and only coughed instead.

"Yeah, mate, I don't buy it either," Meredith agreed, setting the glass aside. "Help if you could give us a name, though. We been calling you Lou."

One eyebrow arched. 

"After Lu Ban. My girl's a bit mad for kites, he's supposed to have invented them. Not here nor there. You want to know what I think about you, Lou?"

The eyes studied his face -- so old, and _so_ sad.

"I think you're a crashed-down alien, is what you are."

A hoarse noise, a little like a laugh, emerged from his throat. The man's eyes rolled a little in his head and he nodded. 

"Well, it's like something out of the cinema, isn't it?" Meredith said. "Only, just in case you're not, or in case you're a baddie alien, I've got to lock you in tonight. You know why, yeah?"

Another nod, this time more serious. 

"Anything I can bring you?" Meredith asked. Lou studied his hands. He opened his mouth, throat visibly tensing and relaxing as he tried to speak.

"I need...to go...to Cardiff," he said in a slurred whisper. He coughed, and something gold and sparkling dribbled over his lip, quickly wiped away with his good hand. "I need to...there's someone I..."

"Someone in Cardiff? I can call them. Who?"

A look of frustration crossed Lou's face. "I don't -- remember!"

"But not these boys in the red berets, eh?" Meredith asked.

"No, no no no..." Lou's hand spasmed on Meredith's wrist. 

"Shh. They'll likely come ask around sooner or later. We'll protect you," Meredith said, and was surprised to find he meant it. They couldn't search every house in the county and even if they could, they'd start with St. Dogmaels. It'd be a long time before they got to him. 

Lou's eyes closed slowly, and after a minute he slumped against Meredith's shoulder. Meredith eased him back on the bed, ignoring the strange smear of gold that was left on his cuff after Lou's mouth brushed it briefly. 

He made sure the window was locked from the inside and the curtains drawn, then cleared away the empty water glass and locked the door behind him after he left. 

Sod if those lying UNIT bastards were getting hold of _their_ Lou. 

***

When Jack returned to the hotel with Luke's mum in tow, he offered to buy them dinner in the little cafe on the ground floor of the inn. Luke picked at his sandwich and listened to them talk, annoyed that every so often Jack cast a look his way that said he still wasn't sure why a teenage kid was in on this game. Eventually, bored by their hashing and re-hashing of where the Doctor could be, and a little embarrassed by their obvious mutual yearning to find him, his attention drifted to where the other two Torchwood agents were sitting together by a window. Mr. Jones had a laptop open to the left of his plate, and was eating without paying much attention, engrossed in whatever was on the screen. Ms. Cooper was talking to someone on a mobile. 

Luke slipped away while Jack and Mum were discussing something about quantum-flux return mechanisms (the idea of a TARDIS copying itself as a distress beacon was, Luke privately thought, a bit ridiculous) and loitered over to the other table. 

Mr. Jones, Luke saw, he had a website open and was scrolling through it, reading, copy-pasting deftly with one hand while the other spooned stew into his mouth. On the screen, Luke could see a colourful webpage covered in graphics. He casually sat in the third chair at the table and craned his neck slightly. Mr. Jones's spoon stopped moving. 

"Love you, Rhys, bye. Hello, Luke!" Ms. Cooper said, smiling brightly at him as she hung up her mobile. "It is Luke, right?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, still trying to get a good look at the computer screen. 

"Call me Gwen. That's Ianto," she said. "Must be a bit of a shock, all this, eh?"

Mr. Jones had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves; now Luke noticed the gun holstered at his hip, and the slightly larger one on Gwen's. 

"I dunno," he said. "It's interesting, I guess."

"Not interesting enough, apparently," Mr. Jones said. "Jack and your mum not holding your attention?"

Luke saw it for what it was, an angle at getting information out of him regarding what they were talking about. Well, he could barter. "They're just talking about the Doctor. They think the TARDIS might have cloned itself as a distress beacon."

"Well, that's -- " Gwen began, but Luke shook his head.

"It's utter rubbish. The physics don't work."

"The physics don't often work, inside the TARDIS, so I understand," Mr. Jones said, and turned to face him. Luke got one good glimpse of the computer screen and frowned. 

"What're you doing?" he asked, nodding at the screen. 

"Research," Mr. Jones answered. "We left Cardiff before we were finished with our last case, and they seem to be intertwined."

"Oh?" Luke asked. Mr. Jones studied him for a minute, one of the most appraising gazes he'd ever encountered, and then lifted the laptop, transferring it to the centre of the table so that he and Gwen could both see it.

"We were given a deck of Tarot cards with unusual imagery, by an unusual person," he said. "I'm researching the meanings, inputting them into a chart. There's an odd pattern emerging. And we think..." he called up a scanned image, that of a golden sunburst with a familiar-looking blue box in front of it, "that it has something to tell us about the TARDIS appearing in Wales."

"The number's wrong," Luke said. Mr. Jones raised an eyebrow. "Normally it's number seventeen."

"Do you read Tarot?" Gwen asked. 

"I just know stuff," Luke said, a little shy under their gaze. Mr. Jones looked thoughtful and then began scrolling back through the scanned cards. 

"Luke!" Mum called, and then she was there, hovering over him. "What are you doing?"

"Helping research!" he said. 

"He's not bothering us -- " Gwen started, but Mum frowned.

"It's not you I'm concerned about," she said, nodding at the gun Mr. Jones was wearing. "I don't think it's -- "

She broke off, suddenly; she was looking at the computer screen. 

"Where did you get that?" she asked. Mr. Jones looked at the screen. There was a young man on this card; his black hair curled a little over his forehead. He was holding twelve other cards, six in each hand.

"They were a gift to Jack," Mr. Jones answered. She leaned closer. 

"That's the one from my dream," she said. "I was talking to the Doctor in a dream, but he looked like this."

Luke saw a covert glance pass between the Torchwood agents, heard the scrape of a chair as Jack stood up to join them. 

"Can you magnify it, please?" Mum asked. Mr. Jones tapped a few keys, and the image enlarged. "No, not his face -- down -- " she said, pointing. 

About seven of the twelve cards "The Magician" held were visible. They were a little grainy at that magnification, but the faces were more or less visible. Most, he saw, were profile portraits. Mum extended one hand, fingers ghosting over the screen, not quite touching. 

"This," she said softly. 

"What?" Jack asked, leaning over her shoulder. Luke gave him a warning look -- and caught Mr. Jones giving him one too. 

"This was my Doctor," she breathed. Luke studied the pixelated, blurry portrait; a sombre-looking man with a shock of curly white hair and an elegant jacket. "And...this too," his mum added, pointing to the next one, a smiling man in a wide-brimmed hat and a large muffler. 

Jack reached around her to scroll the image to the left, then sucked in a breath sharply.

"And that was yours, wasn't it?" Mum asked. This man was gaunt and grim, with piercing blue eyes and very closely cropped hair, little more than a shadow on his head, in a black coat. 

"And this," Jack nodded, pointing to the next image. Luke realised that he knew this one; wild brown hair and a beaky nose and a brown pinstripe coat (the pinstripes all but invisible). 

Jack scrolled left again. Two remaining faces showed: a youngish man with a smug, serene look and shaggy brown hair, and an older one with a round, pale face and narrow-set green eyes, red hair drawn back in a ponytail.

"Doctors yet to be?" Mum said, leaning back. Jack edged around her and shook his head.

"Only for us," he said. "He's regenerated. Twi -- no, three times," and he zoomed out. The young, black-haired man holding the cards seemed to taunt him. "This is how he is, or will be soon."

"Regenerating again," Mum sighed. 

"UNIT might know," Gwen pointed out, startling the others. "That might be why they're looking for him. Our own files say there's an enormous energy discharge when he regenerates, Jack..."

"And if he's tangled with them, they might not be so kind to his newer faces," Jack said. "They may have reason. Have you seen the Brown Deposition?"

"Peri Brown? I _took_ the Brown Deposition," Mum said indignantly.

"Excuse me," Mr. Jones said. "The Brown deposition?"

"Perpugilliam Brown," Jack said. "American. She traveled with the Doctor. She turned up in the nineties -- she was..." 

Luke watched as Jack's mouth twisted.

"She was left behind," he said. "On another planet. Married an alien, then finally got a ride back to Earth. She said the Doctor tried to kill her after regenerating. The same thing happened to Rose. He nearly crashed the TARDIS after a regeneration because it was _fun._ So the reports said," he added with an odd bitterness.

"He never tried to hurt me, though," Mum said.

"He was younger then," Jack answered. 

Luke had heard the stories about Captain Jack Harkness, who was older than he looked, but now he saw it -- a terrible weight of age in his face, and an unbelievable sadness. 

"We have to find him," Jack said. "Before anyone hurts him -- or he kills someone."

***

_Strength: Card is labeled **VIII. Strength** , one of the few accurately numbered cards. It represents patience, compassion, inner strength, and dominance._

_Card depicts a woman holding open the mouth of a "lion", actually a man in a lion costume who fills most of the image. The woman on the card is easily identifiable as Gwen Cooper. The man's face is obscured by a mask. The costume is gold with a vivid red mane._

***

This, Gwen thought as she lay in the concealed compartment under the boot of the SUV, was undoubtedly one of Torchwood's maddest ideas. 

She had no clue what had possessed Jack to design this feature into the SUV; perhaps he'd anticipated a plan like this and just been waiting for an excuse to execute it. Or perhaps he'd tried this before. Either way, it was bloody uncomfortable.

The SUV had a steel-reinforced platform accessible from the rear gate, which at the touch of a button on the dashboard flipped up to reveal what looked like a large, clean spare-tyre well. Below that, as Jack had demonstrated (Luke Smith looking on enviously, Sarah Jane Smith with barely-masked disapproval) was another trap door that could slide forward to create an opening, so that anything or anyone in the compartment could escape and hide under the SUV. It was ingenious, but not very easy on whoever had to lie in the coffinlike space as they bounced down the ill-kept road towards UNIT's makeshift headquarters on the edge of St. Dogmaels. 

She felt the car roll to a stop and barely heard a UNIT sentry, making some kind of inquiry; Jack's curt "Torchwood, to see General Fitz" was much clearer. Then they were moving again, agonisingly slow, until finally the car stopped and the vibrations of the engine disappeared. Doors slammed -- Jack and Ianto, climbing out of the car.

She gave it a count of sixty, then slid the silent hatch aside and eased herself out to the ground. She wanted to gulp in the fresh air after the smell of petrol and Weevil that permeated the little space, but she didn't dare breathe too deeply until she'd made certain that there were no guards. 

She could see, just barely, a makeshift command post, four thin plastic walls and a tarp over the top. Jack and Ianto's boots, there, the hem of Jack's greatcoat, and two more pairs of shoes besides. When Jack's shoes turned and walked away, the others followed. 

_Get in,_ Jack had told her. _Rifle around, see what you can find. UNIT keeps hardcopies of everything, worried about their precious files getting lost if they're digital. They'll have files on the Doctor. Know what they know._

Now she slithered out carefully from under the car and ran, hardly believing her luck, for the safety of the command post. The UNIT sentries were all facing out towards the road they'd come down, backs to the SUV, and she made it inside without being seen. 

There was a wide desk with two computers on it (so much for Jack's disdain of the analog-oriented UNIT) but pinned between them was a map, covered in markings. She snapped two quick photos with her phone, then rummaged in the pile of papers on the chair in front of one of the computers. Nothing but staff files and reports on the area. There was one slim file on Torchwood that she flipped through quickly before discarding -- photos of her and Ianto, a single page on Jack, and disturbingly a "threat assessment" page that listed three people with the surname Jones, and the name Rhys Williams at the bottom. 

The computers were locked too, as she discovered when she nudged the mouse. Password-protected, and oh what she wouldn't give for Tosh right now. 

She ducked down when she heard footsteps approaching, but after a second they passed by and she heard a guard outside asking another one for a light. 

Which was when she saw it -- the slim desktop computer tower beneath the desk, with a portable thumb-drive shoved into the USB port. She tugged on it and it came free; when she held it up to the light of the monitor, she saw a small label on it marked _CONFIDENTIAL: DOCTOR_.

"Seriously?" she muttered to herself, thinking that UNIT could probably learn a thing or two about security from Torchwood, and Torchwood had once let one of its agents sneak a Cyberman into the basement. 

She cast around to make sure she hadn't missed anything, peered out and checked for guards, and then ran breathlessly back to the SUV. Just as she reached it she heard voices again -- Jack and Ianto and the General, returning. She tumbled to the ground, belly-crawled under the car, and wriggled back into the little compartment. 

Ianto's voice was perfectly audible now, since he was leaning against the rear of the car; he said something about checking the tyre pressure, and crouched down not more than a few inches from her hiding place. She drifted a hand down just far enough to give him a thumbs-up, and heard him grunt and straighten.

"Looks fine," he said. "Jack?"

"I'm sorry we couldn't come to an agreement," Jack said to the General. 

"I'm not, especially," the other man replied. "We will find him, Harkness."

"Resolution. Hot," Jack answered, and she heard doors open and close. Under the cover of the car starting, she gently shut the compartment's lower door and held onto whatever she could grasp as the SUV turned and began the long, hot journey back to the inn near the Abbey. 

It stopped sooner than it should have, and she wondered if they'd been caught, but after a few seconds she heard the boot door open and felt a blessed rush of cool air as Ianto flipped up the compartment lid. 

"Out you come," he said, offering her a hand. She took it and let him haul her out onto firm ground, then flopped down heavily on the rear fender. 

"I smell like Weevil," she complained.

"I disinfect it every time," Ianto said apologetically, as Jack joined them. 

"How'd it go?" Jack asked, giving her a sweeping look. She realised he was checking her over to make sure she was okay, and almost laughed.

"Well, I stole government property and found out they keep a file on us," she answered, handing over the flash drive. Jack took it and studied it, nodding.

"We're outside the government, remember?" he said. "You confiscated information vital to Torchwood's mission. Good work." 

"Can I ride in front with the big kids now?" she asked wearily. 

"I'll even let you play with the siren," Jack promised. 

"That had better not be some kind of code," she shot back. Jack grinned. 

"Let's get back and see what we just confiscated," he said. 

***

_The Star: Card is labeled **IX. The Star** , ordinarily card XVII. The Star represents tranquility, peace, hope, the inner spirit, and renewal. _

_On the card, the TARDIS is visible in front of a large sunburst. Either that or we've grossly underestimated the mythological importance of Police Call Boxes._

***

Ianto wouldn't let them plug the drive into any of the computers in the SUV, and once they were back at the inn he put the little object through a series of arcane tests that made Gwen pace with impatience in the little room. Finally he unplugged it from a black box and handed it to Jack, who delicately attached it to the laptop on the table. 

Gwen, engrossed in watching him navigate past the password-protection with the skill of an experienced hacker, didn't notice that Ianto had left the room until he returned, Sarah Jane and Luke in tow. 

"You bring him everywhere with you?" Jack asked, not looking up. 

"Yes," Sarah Jane answered simply. Jack gave Ianto a look. Ianto shrugged, his face a smooth, impassive mask. Just then the laptop beeped, and files began appearing on the screen.

"Oh, naughty UNIT," Jack murmured, scrolling through them. "You've been keeping secrets from me."

"What does it say?" Sarah Jane asked. Jack pointed to a line of text.

"They've seen at least one regeneration in the past twenty years. Babyface there," he pointed to an image, the second-to-last in the row of portraits on the Tarot card, "into Ginger. They registered a whopping energy surge, and Ginger did something to piss them off -- it's all euphemistic, probably some formal code. They want him bad. Says they expect him to regenerate, some kind of...seriously, a prophecy?" he asked, and Gwen caught the sardonic disbelief in his voice. "And an artron energy discharge."

"Erm," Gwen said. They all looked at her. "Our scanners aren't calibrated for that."

"I'll take care of it," Ianto said, and disappeared again. Luke made an uncertain movement. 

"What?" Jack asked the kid. 

"I could help," Luke said hesitantly. Jack nodded. Luke moved to leave, but Sarah Jane clamped a hand on his shoulder.

"He doesn't give you orders," she said firmly. Luke rolled his eyes, which was -- cute, really.

"Mum, may I please go help Mr. Jones recalibrate the scanners for artron energy surge searches?" he asked.

"Well, since you asked nicely," she said, rolling her eyes back at him, and gave him a gentle shove. Luke bolted out the door.

"Do not ever give my child a command again," Sarah Jane said, when he was gone. 

"I nodded!" Jack protested. "He asked!" 

"He's not your recruit, Jack Harkness!"

"Oh, will you let it _go_ with the guns already, bombs aren't any better," Jack retorted. Gwen got the sense that she was missing something. "Nobody wants to recruit the kid. Send him down in five years, maybe. Joking!" he added, when storm clouds almost visible began to gather around Sarah Jane's head. "He's not screwed up enough for Torchwood."

"Oi!" Gwen said, but Jack was already studying the information on the screen in front of him again. Several photographs were arranged in a row. Dates were printed on the bottom.

"Life of a time-traveler," Jack said. "UNIT's known for years about the next regeneration, and the one after. Bastards."

"But they don't have the photo of the man on the Tarot cards," Gwen said. "How...?"

Jack stood up, ignoring her _again_ , and went to the containment boxes where the cards were kept. He took one out and tossed it down on the table. The Hermit, card six, the unseen figure with the lantern. 

"I thought these might be..." he trailed off. "Sarah Jane. You have a toy I need to play with."

Sarah Jane gave him an incredibly skeptical look as he held out his hand.

"Screwdriver, please," he said. Gwen watched as she rummaged in her purse and produced an object that looked nothing like a screwdriver and everything like a lipstick. 

"If you break my sonic lipstick I will be very put out," she said, and pressed it into his hand. 

"Classy," Jack remarked, sounding sincere, and twisted it slowly, aiming it at the card. After a second the colour on the card seemed to bleed and run, flickering almost like a broken television transmission, and then the lipstick-screwdriver-whatever made a high whining noise and seemed to jerk in Jack's hand. He shut it off quickly and passed it back. 

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Gwen said. Jack offered her the card. 

The image had changed, subtly, but it took her a second to realise how; the man's hood was pulled back now, his face completely visible -- with a set of familiar blue eyes. 

"Ianto," she said.

"Yup," Jack answered. "That piece of paper you're holding is worth a small fortune about two thousand years from now. Here and now, it's priceless. Psychic paper," he added, when Gwen gave him a blank look. "It shows the viewer whatever the person holding the paper wants them to see -- and sometimes vice-versa."

"But she's dead," Gwen blurted. 

" _Or_ ," Jack said, a hint of scolding in his voice, "What's imprinted on the paper by...a very strong mind. A deck of psychic paper would be...it would cost more than whole planets. It must have come through the Rift, and she picked it up." His eyes clouded a little. "Ever-changing cards. My god, she showed me..."

"And this one had a hidden...what, layer?" Sarah Jane prompted, when it was obvious Jack was lost somewhere in the past. 

"Maybe more than the one," Jack said, rummaging in the box and picking out the card with the TARDIS on it. He opened the little machine in his hand once more and after a second the same brain-bending bleed of colour and light crossed the surface. When it was finished, he blinked down at it.

"But that's Luke," Sarah Jane said, her voice filling with fear. "In the doorway of the TARDIS. What does it mean?"

Jack looked down at it. "I don't know."

"That's what happened to Ianto in Cardiff," Gwen said suddenly. "Isn't it? He tried to cut into it and it defended itself."

"Yeah," Jack said, still looking down. 

"It could have killed him!"

"It would have killed you," Jack said, finally lifting his eyes to meet hers. "Ianto's had training, and he's naturally closed off. You're...not," he added, with a hint of dry humour. 

"My son in the TARDIS," Sarah Jane said, looking as if she weren't certain whether to be thrilled at the idea of Luke being a chosen companion of the Doctor or terrified -- because she knew what happened to companions of the Doctor. 

Jack turned back to the cards and began trying them, one after another, but only one more opened to reveal a secret: the title of The Hanged Man, the mysterious orange planet, shifted to read _Gallifrey_.

***

Ianto supposed he ought to trust Luke Smith implicitly, given that he was the son of Sarah Jane and obviously of a higher intelligence than the average teenage boy. At the same time, however, there was something eerie about the level of intelligence in Luke's so-young face, and Ianto remembered all too vividly the impulsive, irrational way that boys his age reacted to the world around them. Besides, Sarah Jane was obviously protective of her son, and if Luke got hurt Ianto didn't give himself much chance of surviving with all his limbs intact. 

Still, he had to admit that Luke was clever. As they descended the stairs to fetch the equipment from the SUV, he was already chattering about what kind of sensor sweeps Torchwood had and how best to modify this or that model (things he shouldn't know existed, much less know how to work). He kept up the running techno-commentary until Ianto stopped at the window at the front of the building and peered out.

"UNIT?" Luked asked in an excited whisper. 

"Nothing yet," Ianto answered. "They've locked the city up; they can take their time."

"How do we get out of town if we need to?"

Ianto gave him a quizzical look. "We're Torchwood," he said. This, he felt, ought to explain everything.

"I'm not," Luke pointed out.

"I'll get you an honourary badge," Ianto said absently, double-checking before hurrying across the road to the SUV, Luke loping along behind him. He unlocked the back doors, keyed in the security code on the under-seat lockboxes, and began unloading. Tool chest, everything in order; calibration tools; auxiliary sensor boxes; and the ever-present, ever-necessary power cords. Ianto estimated that in the two years he'd been in Cardiff he had done more power-conversion modification than any other job save perhaps making coffee. 

The benefit, however, was that everything Torchwood owned ran on either D-cell batteries, wall-socket power, or some mysterious but cordless power source built into the mechanisms themselves. He handed Luke the tool chest and the cords, then watched in gratification as Luke gave the sensor boxes a covetous once-over. 

"Back inside, then," Ianto said, urging Luke ahead of him back into the inn. They left the others to their work and went to the room next-nearest the stairway instead, where Ianto had put his and Jack's things when they'd arrived. Strange to be so...public about the fact that he could share a room with Jack, but then it was only Gwen after all. Except now of course Luke Smith was eyeing the pair of suitcases and the single large bed even as he helped Ianto unpack the sensors and lay out the tools. 

"How much electrical engineering do you have?" Ianto asked. 

"Uh," Luke said.

"uh?" Ianto repeated. 

"Well, I know you need to disengage the calibration couplings in order to over-ride the defaults, then you'll probably have to run the wire straight back through to the processor," Luke said. "But I've never actually done it with my hands or anything. Also, I've never handled live equipment."

Ianto narrowed his eyes. "They don't do a special course in alien electronics at your school."

Luke grinned. "I'm naturally inquisitive."

"Is that what you are." Ianto offered him a pair of wire snips. "I'll discharge the units, then you snip the wires. Do as I say and nobody needs to be electrocuted." 

Luke made the modifications sound simple, but there was a lot of fiddly work to be done, and the calibration to detect artron radiation was a little like twiddling the knob of an old radio, looking for one song played on one station at the extreme limit of reception. While Luke cautiously worked on rewiring the second box, Ianto calibrated the first with delicate precision. 

"So," Luke said as they worked. "What's Torchwood like?"

"Like?" Ianto asked.

"You know. What do you do? Not what do you do, but, what's it...like?" Luke seemed flustered. "Do you like it?"

"I don't really think about whether I like it or not anymore," Ianto admitted, carefully slicing a sliver of uneven plastic away from the wires with a penknife. 

"It must be interesting though."

Ianto gave a noncommittal grunt, then looked up. "Why? Thinking of joining up?"

Luke flushed, but replied loftily, "I'm keeping my options open."

Ianto sat back and studied him. Finally he spoke again.

"What we do isn't pleasant," he said, keeping his voice carefully even. "It's not moral. Most of the time it isn't even quite legal. But...it has to be done. We try to make sure that we _only_ do what we have to." He thought of Suzie, and of the night he'd once spent cleaning her blood off the Plass. "It doesn't always work, but then we're human. And if we didn't, someone else would have to."

"That's what Jack said," Luke replied, inspecting the thin, delicate, translucent cable at one end of the box. "Someone has to carry a gun and better him than me. I don't think anyone should have to carry a gun."

Ianto accepted the end of the cable and began slotting the fibres, one at a time, into the other box. "Then you should work for that. Torchwood is not for you. Unless you can believe that and still find a way to carry a gun yourself."

Luke chewed on his lip, watching Ianto -- watching his hands, delicately twisting the wires. 

"Do you?" he asked. 

"I believe in Jack," Ianto answered. 

"He's your boyfriend, isn't he?"

"He's my Captain first," Ianto said firmly, and then froze as a low whistle emerged from the box. Numbers began to appear on the little readout, infinitesimally small. 

"We did it!" Luke said, looking delighted. Ianto gave him a grin as a reward. 

"We'll see if this helps at all," he said. "Get Jack and the others."

Luke bounded out of his chair and made for the door, then stalled. 

"You must like it at least a little," he said from the doorway. 

"It has its moments. Go," Ianto told him, and Luke disappeared into the hall.

***

When the sensor sweeps began, they whispered over her own sensitive armour like a light breeze. The TARDIS was a bare hint in the air, not enough of it left for her to find it, but at that moment she knew it didn't matter.

Someone else was looking for the Doctor. They were looking for the artron radiation he was discharging, which meant they knew that he was dying. She herself had tried to pinpoint him that way, but failed; the radiation was too faint, and it had drifted too far. Still, humans should not have that sort of technology, not in this era, and that meant they might have other resources as well. 

Perhaps it would be the legendary Captain Jack Harkness, who had once stood against her ancestors in more than one battle -- who had helped the Doctor to slay an entire Dalek fleet. Some whispered he was immortal, or part-blooded to a Time Lord, able to regenerate when he was near dying. Out in the reaches of time and space he had disappeared somewhere, though rumours were always surfacing of him turning up to fight where he was needed. She would very much like to meet a man who had held a barricade against Daleks for any length of time. 

But she could not let herself be distracted. Whether it was Captain Jack Harkness was immaterial, so long as they coud help her find the Doctor. If they knew to look for artron radiation, they would know more of the universe than most inhabitants of this strange little planet, such an insignificant rock to throw one of the major races of the universe into the stars. They would perhaps know her for what she was, or at least know the threat she represented. They could be dealt with. 

She had a job to do and she intended to do it. She had agreed with her superiors that it was not a pleasant job, and certainly she was not the ideal candidate, but there was a lovely sort of symmetry in the assignment that neither she nor her superiors could dismiss. And she had asked for this honour, pleaded really. 

Daleks do not plead lightly. 

***

_The Moon: Card is labeled **X. The Moon**. Sequentially the Moon follows the Star as card XVIII in an ordinary deck. The Moon represents tension and doubt, conflict, fear, and illusion._

_This is the only card without a recognisable figure or object on it, but the symbol in gold and black has been tentatively identified by Jack as the logo of the Time Agency._

***

"What does this actually...mean?" Ianto asked. 

Jack was scrawling numbers and calculations on a scrap of paper, consulting the sensor-box readouts occasionally, face darkening by the minute. Sarah Jane looked pensive, but also as if she didn't quite understand what was happening. Luke, on Jack's other side, was leaning over him and pointing numerals out occasionally, and the two were speaking in some kind of math-based language that none of the others fully comprehended. 

"Artron radiation," Sarah Jane said, frowning. "It's a form of energy tied into Time Lord biology. It's picked up by organic matter traveling through time. Ordinarily there's a certain background level, just from...well, time passing."

"The levels of background energy in Wales have been steadily rising," Jack said, still scribbling calculations. "Very, very small increments, but exponentially every few minutes, according to this. Working backwards -- "

"Must've started this morning," Luke said.

"When the TARDIS arrived," Sarah Jane agreed. 

"But it's just...blanket, there's no way to pinpoint it other than..." Jack looked frustrated. "Here. This...area. It means the Doctor's here, or was here, probably still is...somewhere...trying to regenerate."

"But not where," Luke looked equally frustrated. Math and science were failing him. 

"Much longer and I won't be able to stay here," Jack added. They all looked at him. "I'm...people who are...well..." he trailed off, embarrassed. 

"Jack?" Ianto prompted.

"Artron energy is what history and time are made from. We think. Nobody really understands it. The longer you live, the more sensitive to it you become. This morning, the girl..."

"It killed her?" Gwen asked, alarmed. Jack shook his head. 

"But she would have felt it -- especially if she knew to look for it. I think she killed herself," he said in a low voice. "She harnessed it somehow. Which is probably what diffused it. I've been in hard-energy artron storms before. I'll get weak, I'll get sick, I'll..."

"Die," Ianto said. "Permanently?"

"No," Jack sighed. "Thought of that."

"Well, that's _cheering_ ," Gwen snapped.

"This doesn't get us any closer to the Doctor," Sarah Jane interrupted, like a parent splitting up squabbling children. 

"It might," Ianto said, and it was his turn to bear the brunt of everyone's attention. "Clearly she knew the Doctor was coming. She gave us a message showing him what he looked like. It's not unreasonable to expect somewhere in the cards is a message about how to find him."

"Talking of," Ianto said, picking up one of the scattered cards on the table and holding it up.

"I was going to tell you about that," Jack said, looking faintly guilty. Ianto turned the card to study his own face. "Um...Luke, you're..."

Luke was already shuffling through the cards until he turned over his own, but he didn't look at it for long. Instead he snatched the card Ianto was holding out of his hand, and held them up to compare them. He set them next to each other and began digging madly through the others, bringing up the trump cards, one after another, laying them out in numbered order. Four neat rows of three, with one to spare. He frowned, reshuffled them into three rows of four, then frowned again.

"What is it, Luke?" Sarah Jane asked, looking worried. 

"There's something here," Luke said. "Look at the backgrounds. They're all yellow. Most of the cards are yellow. See, here," he pointed to the image of the Doctor, and the streaks of black-on-gold that bled into the card next to it, where Queen Victoria glared balefully out at them. The gold highlights at the bottom of her dress matched up to a pattern in the card below, the light pale folds of the cowl slung back from Ianto's face. 

Ianto looked lower, to where the strange antique map of the Earth was, third from the left in the bottom row. 

"Does that look familiar to you?" he said, tapping a little figure in the image, a sea monster labeled _HERE BE DRAGYNS_. Gwen tilted her head, squinting. "It's very...square."

He tapped the laptop to bring the screen to life and closed the UNIT files, bringing up a satellite image instead. A map of St. Dogmaels -- with the square, ruined Abbey at its centre. 

"It's a map," Gwen said. "They're a map. There's St. Dogmaels, and there's the coast..." she traced a single jagged line that ran from behind Sarah Jane's head to the edge of the sunburst behind the TARDIS. 

"No X, though," Jack murmured.

"What?" Ianto asked.

"X marks the spot," Luke supplied. "There's no marker."

Sarah Jane bent close to the cards, studying them. Finally she gave a small, sharp laugh.

"Of course there is," she said. "We should have seen it sooner."

"Where?" Gwen asked. "I don't see it."

Sarah Jane rested her finger on Ianto's card, and Ianto suppressed another shiver. She tapped the lantern he held. Ianto reached around Gwen and called up the magnification on the laptop, then looked down in consternation.

"It's different," he said. The lantern in the computer was square and open-faced, the candle clearly visible. On the card, it had a fretwork of little iron crosses -- no, little X symbols -- and a word engraved on the base. 

"Exanclat," Jack read aloud. "Latin?"

"He finishes," Luke said. 

"Is there anything you don't know?" Jack asked, a little sharply.

"Lots," Luke gave him a happy look, but then he sobered. "That's not really...all."

"Luke?" Sarah Jane asked. 

"It means to finish -- to...end, to exhaust," Luke said uncertainly. " _He bears it to the end._ " 

"Ianto," Jack said quietly, but Ianto was already at work, keying up the map on the screen, arranging the scanned images on top of it. He dropped the opacity down, so that the map was visible through the overlaid cards, and began shifting them around, trying to align the markings on the cards with the streets and landmarks on the map. Finally, he marked the area outlined by the lantern, and called it up.

It wasn't a very large area, really. Far from where they'd found the TARDIS, but clearly outlined in the lantern's frame. A single isolated house, with a tiled roof and a road running past it, dividing it from a field.

"Do you really think he's there?" Gwen asked. 

"One way to find out," Jack said. 

"Just one thing," Luke interrupted, as Gwen and Ianto both began to pack up their equipment. They glanced at him. "There's this."

He held up the thirteenth card, the only one that hadn't fit into the square block that formed the map. It was black, for the most part, with two blue pinpricks in the center and a wide, curving, tapering white slash along the top. The legend read _XIII. Death_ in stark white letters. 

"Death isn't always Death," Jack said. "Trust me, I ought to know."

***

They must look a sight, the big black SUV leading the small green Nissan through the night-empty streets of St. Dogmaels. Like a Rottweiler leading a terrier, Jack thought, though he wouldn't have said it aloud to Sarah Jane. 

They'd disabled the lights and computer screens and were running without headlamps, wary of UNIT patrols. As they were preparing to leave, one of the soldier transports had barreled down the street and begun searches in the southernmost part of town. Interrupting family dinner, Jack thought, tsk tsk. 

Before today he'd felt a friendly sort of competition with UNIT, but as they never stepped on Cardiff and he rarely had the spare time to tackle anything outside of it there wasn't much conflict.

Then the Doctor had been seen in London, and UNIT had been called out to deal with a temporal doorway in a traffic tunnel. And they hadn't called him. Hadn't even called after, until he contacted them and had to have another tiresome pissing match with one of the officers in charge over who was going to take possession of the antigrav clamps on an abandoned double-decker bus outside of Glastonbury. Small as it might be, Torchwood's charter clearly stated that it was founded to seek out the Doctor. UNIT had repeatedly, for a century, kept the Doctor from Torchwood. When his enemies ran the organisation Jack was fine with this, but now that he was Torchwood's nominal executive in chief it annoyed him. He felt like a homicide detective forced to let the riot squad investigate a murder.

Morbid -- especially given the inscription on the tarot card, and particularly given what it might mean. He didn't want to think about that. 

Ahead of them, lights blazed up suddenly and he brought the SUV to a slow halt, giving Sarah Jane time to match his speed. He climbed out of the SUV, leaving the door open, and motioned for Gwen and Ianto to stay where they were. 

Sarah Jane climbed out too and crept up to the car, a question on her face.

"Roadblock," Jack said softly. "We can't get through. They'll have a perimeter. Every road."

"You can pass through, can't you?" she asked.

"If we want UNIT following us to the Doctor, sure," he replied. 

"Well, we can't very well give up and go home now," she said. "What about crossing the fields?"

Jack turned to look at the shadowy horizon, considering. It could be done; UNIT couldn't patrol every field, and given the time they were likely to have with the locals, probably wouldn't try. On the other hand, navigating the Welsh countryside in the middle of the night...

"Ianto," he said, leaning into the SUV. Ianto looked up from the backseat.

"Yes?"

"Night-vision goggles?"

A small smile. "Next to the wellies. Only two pairs though, I'm afraid."

"You're the best butler ever," Jack told him. "Okay kids, we're turning around. First cover we can find for the cars, we'll get out and take it on foot from there. Somebody better memorize that map."

"I can," Luke said, startling them both. He'd crept out of the car stealthily and cat-footed down the road, listening in from behind them. "I can navigate us there. It'll be just like orienteering. Got a compass?"

Jack glanced at Ianto, who rolled his eyes and produced one from a kit beneath the back seat. 

"That means you lead, kid," he said. Luke just nodded and accepted the compass. 

They found a small stand of trees that could at least partially shield the cars, and Ianto got the night-vision goggles out of the boot, helping Luke into his. After losing a quick rock-paper-scissors with Gwen for who would take rear point, he donned the other pair. 

"Luke leads, I follow," Jack said. "Nuh-uh," he added, as Sarah Jane began to protest. "I'm armed, and if someone takes a shot at him I can get him on the ground faster. You two -- sorry, no chauvinism intended -- behind me, and Ianto in the rear."

He couldn't resist leering a little as he said it. Sarah Jane looked exasperated and walked to the boot while Jack and Gwen made sure the SUV was secure. 

"Doesn't it bother you when he does that?" he heard Sarah Jane ask Ianto, who was packing supplies into a bag.

"Only during work hours," Ianto answered, and Jack stifled a laugh. 

***

They made a strange party, passing through the darkened fields; Jack had made everyone walk with their left hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them, and Ianto was reminded of images he'd seen of soldiers from the first world war, blinded by gas, using the same technique. Perhaps Jack had led men that way. Perhaps Jack had marched that way. No way to know, and Ianto would have died before he'd ask. 

Sarah Jane's pace was brisk ahead of him and unlike the others Ianto could see the little snaking column leading him, but he didn't look too often. He was busy sweeping the sides, keeping a lookout for UNIT. Once in a while he saw Luke bend his head to consult the compass and correct his course. 

He reckoned they'd been going for about a mile, and were just starting to arc back towards the road, when he felt something behind him. 

His first thought was to yell, but he stifled it just before a hand clamped over his mouth -- no, a gauntlet, oh god, cold metal against his teeth. He almost stumbled, but they were all slipping and stumbling into ruts and burrow-holes, and Sarah Jane didn't notice. Just as well, because the next thing he felt was the barrel of a weapon pressed against his spine. 

He was proud that he didn't stagger or yell or wet himself, really. Instead he kept walking, which was obviously what the gauntleted figure behind him wanted. After a few seconds of reflection, he carefully pressed his fingers against Sarah Jane's shoulder, momentarily tightening his grip. When she didn't react, he squeezed three times in quick succession, then three slow, then three fast again. 

Sarah Jane's shoulder shifted slightly, but if it was a message he didn't understand it. They went a little further before she whispered, "Can we stop? There's something in my shoe."

"Don't stop," said a voice over his shoulder, just loud enough to carry up to the front of the line. There was an odd metallic harshness to it. "Just keep walking."

"Ianto?" Jack whispered, even as they continued. The fingers eased away from his mouth.

"I'm fine," he said. "Just picked up a guest. Luke, don't turn around," he added, when he saw, through his goggles, Luke about to peer over his shoulder. "Keep going."

Suddenly this was no longer a pleasant if somewhat unorthodox walk through a field; it was a forced march. 

"There really is something in my shoe, you know," Sarah Jane said, reproachfully. She was met with silence from whoever was behind Ianto. The voice had sounded vaguely feminine, under the metallic overtones. 

They continued on in grim silence until there was a tug on Ianto's shoulder, and the voice said, "Stop." It reached Luke last, and Ianto fought a slightly hysterical laugh as Jack's tug on his shoulder almost pulled him flat. 

"Let go of her," the voice said. Ianto realised it was talking to him. He released Sarah Jane's shoulder, suddenly conscious that he might have been gripping it a bit tightly. "Come with me. If anyone tries to run, if anyone tries to attack, I will shoot him."

Ianto recognised the matter-of-fact tone of someone who had made good on the threat before. Which was a shame; it was easier to fight people who threatened violence out of hysteria. 

The barrel of the weapon traveled up to a place between his shoulderblades as he was marched past the others -- "Luke, _don't turn_ ," he ordered sharply, because the last thing he wanted was for a kid to see him get shot -- and up to an empty patch of ground off to the left of where the others stood. 

"Stop," the voice said, and Ianto turned his own head slightly to see Jack's hand going for his revolver. "I can see better than you," it added. 

"Sorry," Ianto said. "Didn't expect an attack from behind."

"I'll make sure you're punished for it later," Jack replied with grim humour. Ianto was distracted by the pressure of an arm against his waist, and a body on his left side -- whoever it was who had a gun in his back was now standing next to him, gun firmly in place. 

He had no peripheral vision in the goggles, but it sounded like she (he'd decided on she) was digging something out of a bag. When he turned his head slightly he could see an arm, upraised, holding a small sphere covered in rounded studs. She held it straight out from the shoulder and then released it; it floated in midair for a second, then drifted ahead of them. There was a brief spark of -- light, something -- against the empty black of the sky, and then it darted upwards about four feet. 

Through the goggles, he could see an odd geometry: a straight line of laser-sight light cut across his field of vision, but where the little ball floated the light bent, as if refracted through a prism, and traveled upwards at a steep angle on each side, terminating in the sides of the floating ball. 

"I think UNIT set up laser tripwires," he said cautiously.

"If you walk directly under the orb you will not set them off," the voice confirmed. 

"Luke, you see where that is?" Ianto asked. 

"Yes," Luke said in a nervous, strangled voice. 

"We go first," the voice said. "Then you, then we rejoin you. If you reach out to set off the tripwires -- "

"You'll shoot him, yeah," Jack said. "Got that."

Which meant that once he and the Voice Behind Him had gone under the tripwires, the others would have seen what they were dealing with, at least. Ianto backed under the wires with her behind him, then stood to watch the others pass through. Luke's expression was barely visible under the goggles, but both Jack and Sarah Jane had fear flashing in their eerily-highlit eyes. Gwen just gave him a reassuring smile. 

The Voice held out a hand again and the little orb zipped into it. There was another small spark and the laser tripwire UNIT must have set up became invisible through the goggles once more. Ianto moved to join the end of the line again. 

Odd, really, that the Voice hadn't taken Luke as a hostage when there was a chance. Children were more vulnerable, and Jack might risk Ianto's life if he had to but there was no way he was going to risk the life of a teenage boy, and a civilian at that. Unless the Voice knew that Luke had to lead them, which meant she'd been watching a lot longer than Ianto was comfortable with. Or perhaps she just thought he was the least likely to try and escape a gun in his back. People often underestimated Ianto. 

"What do you want?" he asked the Voice in an undertone. Up ahead he could see a farmhouse -- unlucky UNIT, if that was the ultimate aim. So close and yet so far...

"You are taking me to what I want," the Voice answered. 

"Fresh Welsh produce?" he asked, the joke falling a little flat. 

"You are taking me to the Doctor. You will understand when we arrive."

"Look, it's one against five," Ianto said, hoping he was too quiet to be heard -- no such luck.

"Don't negotiate with it," Jack called, voice a harsh whisper.

"It's one against five, you have to know you can't keep us all under control forever," Ianto continued. "We can be reasonable about this."

"Perhaps so, but reason can wait until I've found him," she answered. 

"What if I refuse to take you there?" Luke asked, up ahead.

"See?" Jack said reproachfully.

"If you wish to force a confrontation, I can demand the destination coordinates," she said. "Then you must refuse to take me there at this moment in time, instead of simply misleading me. You are a biological youth, so I will not compel you to do this. Yet," she added, a dangerous edge to her voice. 

"Wow," Luke said softly. "She's good."

"Keep walking," Jack ordered. 

"Well, that's the thing," Luke said. "You see that building ahead? That's kind of it."

Ianto looked up at the farmhouse, half a field away. He thought he saw movement in an upstairs window, but anyone living this far out in the country would probably be well asleep by now. And even if they weren't, it wasn't likely they'd see six dark shadows passing through their fields. 

As they drew closer, he became more and more certain that someone was moving in the upper level of the house. He hoped the Voice hadn't noticed. 

Then, when they were just across the road, there was the sudden _zwip!_ of a bullet through the air, and before he could react or duck a sharp clang of metal, loud in the silence. A ricochet, he thought wildly, as pain lanced through his shoulder. Still, there were more important things to deal with, because the bullet's impact had thrown the Voice off-centre and if he turned --

He whirled and shoved, hard, using the Voice's hand on his shoulder to throw her further off-balance. They went down together and he managed to get her flat on her back, briefly, hands on her wrists, both of them fighting in absolute silence. She coiled to throw him off and he felt the almost effortless way in which she shook free, but not before he'd wrestled the weapon -- a rounded barrel, much thicker than any handgun -- out of her fingers. He rebounded quickly and had the gun trained on her before she could move much. His finger naturally found a trigger.

"Got her," he said softly. "Get Luke down, there's fire from the house."

He expected another bullet, perhaps several, but the adrenaline and pain had heightened his senses and he was more absorbed in the task of finally discovering who the Voice was. 

She was in an odd skintight armour, reflecting what little light there was, green in the night-vision view. There was some kind of reflective metal helmet that only revealed half her face, bright green in the goggles, and she wore a dark goggle over her visible eye. And...were those horns...?

"What do you want with the Doctor?" Jack asked, joining him, revolver trained on her head. Ianto readjusted his aim for what he hoped was her heart. 

"Who are you to demand answers?" she inquired. She was oddly calm -- either she knew she couldn't be hurt or she had nerves of steel. 

"Captain Jack Harkness," Jack said. "And you are?"

She seemed to tense at the name, though it was hard to tell -- not enough of her face was visible to get a good read on her reaction. 

"I am going to lift one arm," she said. "I must present my credentials."

Ianto watched as one of her arms slowly raised off the ground. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw Gwen and Luke huddled low to the ground. Sarah Jane stood behind them, holding something in her hand that glowed faintly from the tip. 

When he looked back, she had lifted her left arm completely and turned it so that the back of her hand faced them. A bulk around the wrist interrupted the smooth line of the metal plates...a wrist-strap, like Jack's. _Time Agent_ , his memory supplied, along with an unwelcome flash of John Hart in a bar, making remarks about size and speed. 

"Jack," Gwen said, urgently.

"Not now," Jack replied, stepping forward and tearing the strap from her arm. "Ianto -- "

"Not to worry," Ianto said, keeping his focus on the woman -- the Time Agent -- as Jack examined the strap.

"I was told the Agency shut down," he said. The Time Agent laughed a little.

"In all of time and space, one singular point -- "

" -- does not inform or cohere," Jack finished. "Your name is Sko."

"Yes, Captain Harkness. It is a pleasure to meet such a famous man," she added, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. 

"Why are you after the Doctor?" Jack asked. 

"The same as you, I expect," Sko said. "I wish to pay last respects."

Jack's face, what could be seen of it, filled with pain. 

"Last respects," he repeated.

"Even Time Lords are not immortal," she replied. 

"You threatened to shoot my agent."

"I could think of no other way to attain my goal. Look at me, Jack Harkness," she said, and he arm turned again. Now he could see little studs holding the armour together, studs that looked remarkably like those the Daleks had -- and what Ianto had taken for horns were set into Sko's head just where a Dalek's would be...

"Oh my god," he said softly. "Jack, she's a Dalek."

"Daleks don't have gender," Jack replied. "They don't work for the Time Agency, and they sure as hell don't bother taking hostages."

"As if your experience encompassed the entire universe," Sko sneered. "Admit it, Captain -- you would have shot first."

"Well, we'll never know now, will we?" Jack asked. "Get up."

"Yes, do," said a new voice, and Ianto let Jack be the one to turn in surprise, keeping his newly-acquired Dalek weapon on Sko as she rose slowly from the ground. He risked a glance and saw a new figure, a rifle on his shoulder, aimed at Sarah Jane. 

"There's nothing here for you," the man said. "Get the hell out of my field."

"It's an air rifle," Ianto murmured to Jack. 

"It'll still kill you," the man answered. 

"We've come to find the Doctor," Jack said. Ianto saw his own weapon was on the armed man. "Shoot her, I'll shoot you. You might not kill her but I promise _this_ can."

"Now you see why I hate guns?" Sarah Jane said to Luke. 

"Yes, mum," Luke answered with a sigh. 

"Let's not go jumping to conclusions," Jack started, and looked relieved when Meredith trained the gun on him instead. "We think there might be someone in your fields that we need to find. He could be sick."

"There's nobody but you trespassers here," the man answered, but then gave himself away: "What do you want with the man?"

"Just to see him," Jack answered gently. "We're not with the soldiers, I swear. We just want to help him."

"You have a lot of guns for people who just want to help," the man replied.

"Not as many as the soldiers," Jack pointed out. "I'm Captain Jack Harkness, we've come from Torchwood in Cardiff to see him."

The man eased the barrel back a little. "Cardiff?"

Jack nodded. 

"Toss the guns," the man insisted. Jack slowly let his fall, then glanced at Ianto, who put the strange alien weapon on the ground. He saw Sarah Jane slide whatever she was holding up her sleeve, but the man was busy watching Gwen unstrap her holster and lay it on the ground. 

"Best come in then," the man said, easing the rifle back and hanging it on his shoulder by a strap. "First sign of trouble I'll shoot the lot of you."

Ianto turned to look at Sko, who was looking at him. With a mocking little bow, he gestured for her to go first. 

"Sorry about the hostage thing," she said, as he followed her. Ianto became aware, suddenly, of blood running down the inside sleeve of his shirt, and a wrenching pain in his shoulder.

"Oh well, it happens," he answered drily. 

A light flicked on downstairs, just as they reached the door, and it opened before their newest hostage-taker could reach for the knob. A young girl stood in the doorway in her pyjamas. 

"I told you to stay in bed!" the man said, annoyed. 

"Who're they?" she asked, looking at them over his shoulder. 

"Guests," the man said. "Here to see Lou."

"Lou?" Jack asked, eyebrows raising.

"You promised he'd be safe!" she accused. 

"Excuse me," Ianto said, and the girl and what was obviously her father looked back at him. "I believe you've shot me. Could we have the domestic inside?"

***

_The World: Card is labeled **XI. The World** , ordinarily XXI and thus the final card in the trump suit. It represents fulfillment, accomplishment, and an integration of ideas; things being made whole. _

_The image appears to be a decorative ancient map of the Earth. Very little accuracy, but points for cool dragons in the Atlantic._

***

Meredith watched from a corner, Ellen behind him, as the rest of this rather odd-looking crew fussed over the man in the suit. The one who'd introduced himself as Captain Jack Harkness Of Torchwood In Cardiff helped him to a chair, and both women stripped off his coat, while he looked rather tolerant about the whole thing. Most of his right arm was stained in blood, but Meredith knew the power of the little air rifle and he knew it couldn't possibly be serious. He was right -- the bullet had grazed a deep streak across the man's shoulder, but nothing that would be life threatening. The youngest of the group, hardly much older than Ellen, fetched a first-aid kit from a pack one of the women had been carrying, and as soon as they'd got his shirt half-off and got a bandage taped over it he seemed fine. 

"Bit young to be the police, aren't you?" he asked the boy, who gave him a cocky grin.

"I'm a freelancer," he answered. 

"Oho."

"We're not," Captain Jack Harkness said. "Is he here?"

"He's sleeping," Meredith answered firmly. 

"And you are...?" 

"Meredith Griffith. This is Ellen," Meredith said. Ellen gave him a sulky look. "Lord Protector of our Lou."

"Lou," Jack Harkness repeated, as if this was funny.

"We named him," Ellen piped up. 

"You named him Lou?" the younger man asked, making a face at his ruined shirt. 

"Lu Ban," Ellen said.

"The Chinese philosopher?" the boy asked. 

"Well, there's a first," Meredith remarked to Ellen. 

"I'm Luke," the boy said. "Luke Smith. That's my mum, Sarah Jane, and Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones."

"And me you've met," Jack said. "Can I see him?"

Meredith gave him an appraising look. "What if I say no?"

Jack flashed him a wide, charming grin. "Don't make me beg, Meredith. I'm pretty but I have my pride."

His accent was American, but he pronounced Meredith's name properly, with a roll and emphasis on the r. Meredith found himself trusting the man without quite knowing why. 

And yet...

"Are you more aliens?" he asked. Jack blinked, then chuckled.

"Do we look like aliens?"

"She does," he said, pointing to the metallic woman who was standing quietly in a corner of the kitchen, watching them all. 

"Oh -- she might be," Jack said. Meredith nodded.

"You, only," he said to Jack. "Ellen, come along."

"You're taking all this pretty well," Jack said, as he followed them down the hallway.

"I'm Welsh," Meredith replied.

"Explains a lot," Jack agreed. 

"But you're not," Meredith added.

"No, but I'm a subject of Her Majesty," Jack said. "And I'm guessing you could tell at least two of my people are."

"Hmh," Meredith grunted, unlocking the door to Lou's room. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "He's sleeping. You wake him and you'll have me to answer to."

"I just want to see him," Jack said, and Meredith had the strange impression of youth and age at once -- a hopeful child and a desperate parent. Strange. 

He opened the door and let Jack go first into the room, stopping Ellen when she tried to follow. From the doorway they watched as Jack approached the bed slowly. Whatever disease was eating away at Lou had spread up to his cheek now, scaly and red, but Jack didn't seem to care. He touched Lou's forehead, stroked his hair back.

"Oh, Doctor," he said brokenly. 

"He's a doctor," Ellen whispered. 

"Or that's his name," Meredith whispered back. Jack eased down onto the bed, sitting on the edge, and took one of Lou's hands in both of his. As they watched, a slight flicker of gold emerged from Lou's open mouth. Jack thumbed away a hint of it on his lips, then cupped his cheek. 

"It's okay," Jack whispered, but Meredith had the sense he was trying to reassure himself. "We'll fix it. I promise we'll fix it."

"Come away," Meredith said softly to Ellen, pulling her back from the doorway. "They don't mean Lou any harm."

***

When Jack came out of the Doctor's room, he found Luke making tea, the others sitting around the small kitchen table. All except Sko, who still stood at the best any Time Agent ever did at "attention", in the corner. 

"Is it him?" Ianto asked. Jack nodded. 

"He's sick," he said, sitting down at the table. Luke brought him a cup of tea, then retreated to the kitchen counter. "He's trying to regenerate, but something's going wrong."

"Regenerate?" Meredith asked, cocking his head. 

"People of his...species," Jack said, trying to couch this in terms an ordinary person would understand, "Can re-create themselves if they're near death. It's called regeneration. He's trying -- "

"But he is dying," Sko said, from the corner, and everyone looked at her.

"Do you know how to save him?" Sarah Jane asked. Sko shook her head.

"That is not why I am here," she answered. 

"Well, then what good are you?" Gwen demanded. Sko gave her a tolerant half-smile, all that she was able to do with the helmet covering most of her face. Jack had to admit that she gave the impression, if not the outright image, of a Dalek; if he'd seen her in the street there really was a good chance he would have shot first and done an autopsy after. The black goggle over her eye, like the tip of a Dalek eyestalk, was unnerving. 

"I am not here to be useful to you," Sko informed them. "I am here to pay my respects to the Doctor, and to maintain the time-stream. This is official business; the Agency has sent me."

Jack got a bad feeling about this. "Sent you to do what?"

Sko shook her head again. "I know more of Time Lords than you -- yes, even you, Captain Harkness," she said. "At some point even their bodies begin to fail. When a Time Lord dies, the artron energy is released -- enough, in his body alone, to blow the Earth out of orbit and destroy every living thing."

"Well, we don't want that," Meredith said slowly. 

"Nor do we. The existence of my Agency and several species in your distant future depend on the Earth's continued security," Sko said. "Which is why I have been sent here to kill him."

"What!" Gwen and Sarah Jane at once, and Ianto's protest came not far behind, "You can't!" 

"No!" Ellen said, over Luke's more sensible "Why would you do that?"

"It is the natural progression of life," Sko replied calmly. "All things die. Well, most things," she added, with a glance at Jack. "If he dies in the middle of regeneration, he will destroy all life as you know it. If he is killed -- "

" -- he just becomes a body," Jack finished. Gwen turned wounded eyes on him. _Traitor._

"But you can't kill Lou," Ellen said. "He's just sick! I knew we should have called hospital," she added to her father, who sighed. 

"He is dying," Sko insisted. "He has two, perhaps three days at the most. I can make sure the end is painless -- for him, and for humanity. It is an honour," she added, as if this held any weight. "There are thousands of races in the sky who have come to pay their respects. I am the only one who can carry their love to him. I am the one who was chosen for this task."

"A Dalek," Jack said. "Fitting."

"You do not know who I am," Sko said in a low, threatening voice. 

"I know you're one of the few who probably _can't_ carry love at all," Jack retorted. 

"You know nothing of his life!" she insisted. "You know nothing of my life. I am not here as a Dalek or as a Time Agent now."

"Then who are you, here, now?" Jack asked. 

She went quiet and tight-lipped. 

"All right," Sarah Jane said firmly, spreading her hands on the table. "It's been a very long day and we're all tired. We know where he is now, and -- is there any immediate danger?" she asked Sko. 

"Not tonight," Sko said. "We can use your artron sensors to monitor him."

"How do you know about those?" Ianto asked. She gave him a sardonic look.

"Well..." Meredith said, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm not running a hotel here."

"I do not sleep," Sko said.

"Join the club," Jack replied. "We'll stand watch. We can't get back to St. Dogmaels," he said to Meredith. "There are roadblocks and tripwires surrounding the town."

Meredith looked uncertian. "Reckon we could put the women up in Ellen's room," he said. "There's a cot in the study, and a couple of chairs."

"Slept in worse," Ianto said wearily. "Lead the way."

***

Ellen's room was wonderful, at least Sarah Jane thought so; Gwen gave the kites and diagrams on the room's walls a once-over and then began laying out her sleeping bag with brisk efficiency. Sarah Jane drifted over to the desk, where a couple of delicate, detailed hand-drawings of kites, complete with airflow calculations, were tacked next to a mirror. There were spools of string and clear fishing line jumbled in a box to one side, and folds of fabric on top of thick sheets of durable waxy paper. 

"You have a lovely room, Ellen," she said sincerely. Ellen was carrying a second sleeping-bag through the door, and she smiled, pleased and shy, as she unfastened the drawstring on the sack it was in. "How long have you been making kites?"

"Couple of years," Ellen replied. "We get good winds in this part of the country. Dad says for my birthday I can have one of those camera things, that takes pictures automatically, so I can send it up and see the countryside."

"Are you interested in flying?"

Ellen shrugged. "I just like kites."

"But you do a lot of math," Sarah Jane pressed, waving a hand at the calculations. "You don't need to know any of this, just to fly a kite."

Ellen looked about to reply, but Luke barged in with his arms full of blankets. 

"Mr. Griffith sent these up so you wouldn't be cold on the flo....ooooh," he said, distracted. He looked around, blankets trailing as Gwen tried fruitlessly to grab one. Sarah Jane smiled. "So uh," he said, when he'd done a full turn, "you like kites, huh?"

Then he got his _way to state the obvious, geek_ expression, which always broke Sarah Jane's heart just a little, but Ellen didn't seem to notice.

"Yeah," she said, taking the blankets out of his arms.

"Hey, you didn't lose a parafoil, did you?" Luke asked. "I found one in the Abbey this morning."

"All the way in the Abbey?" she asked, excited. "That was mine! Nobody else has one. Did you bring it back with you?"

"Left it in the hotel room," Luke said apologetically. 

"Can you show me where it landed?" she asked, digging out a survey map. "I know about what altitude it was at, I can track the windspeed if I can calculate how long it took to come down -- "

"Or," Sarah Jane said, noticing Gwen's exhausted expression, "we could do this in the morning. Come on, both of you to bed."

"Just east of the transept!" Luke called over his shoulder, as she hustled him out the door. 

***

Once Jack had seen Luke and Ianto settled and checked on the Doctor again, he went looking for Sko. He still had her strap, which was some comfort, but he knew better than to trust a Time Agent. 

He found her sitting on the step outside the kitchen door. The black eyepiece was in her hands and he steeled himself for a gaping wound or a knot of cybernetic material when she looked up to face him, but instead he found himself gazing into quite a pleasant single green eye. 

"So," he said, sitting down. 

"So," she agreed.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you have the nicest breasts I've ever seen on a Dalek," he told her.

She laughed a little. It was true, but only because most Daleks had no human physiology at all. The breastplate of her armour rose in a slight curve, like the dress of a medieval woman's, then rounded gently and dipped back. It was a signifier of gender, nothing more, like the indentation where her breastplate met the long strips of metal that ran down her hips. 

"I had heard this about you," she said. Then, considering, "But I suppose this is a gambit. You want to know who I am, why I am here."

"I do," he said, offering her the strap back. She secured it around her wrist loosely. 

"Rumour has it you were a Time Agent, before you took your name," she said.

"I was."

"May I ask your point of origin?"

In the Agency, it was considered a little tasteless, like asking someone's salary, but he took it in stride. 

"I was born in the fifty-first," he said.

"And how far forward have you been?"

 _Oh, to the end of time,_ he thought, but didn't say. "Nine hundred and fifth, but not while I was with the Agency."

"While you were with -- the Doctor," she said, a funny pause. 

"That's right."

"Had you heard about the Second Human Uprising?"

He shook his head. He hadn't even heard about the first. She looked away from him, still fiddling with the eyepiece. 

"In the time of the second human uprising, there was a second Time War," she said. "You can see traces of it even here, like little scars in reality. Well. I can." 

"Another," he breathed. 

"Humans against the Reborn Dalek Fleet. There was a saying from that time -- there will always be a Dalek," she sighed. "The Doctor, mine, the red-haired one, he came to fight on the side of the humans. They called him the Grieving God. He never wanted to fight."

"He never does."

"One of the battles made planetfall. Colony planet," she continued. "He found a small child dying there. A human child," she added. "Mostly human, anyway. My biological father was one-quarter Dyelian. It does not matter. The Doctor said once that he just wanted to save something, he wanted to breathe beauty into all the destruction."

"So he saved you," Jack said, wondering if the Doctor had been horrified by the form her salvation took.

"He fused my genes with those of a Dalek, also dying. He stole its armour for me. I am not a woman, Captain Jack Harkness. Just a brain, and a series of -- muscle masses. My Dalek heritage. I carry their memories as well. He remade me. I did say they called him a god," she added. "He is the only father I have ever known."

Jack closed his eyes. The Doctor was good at that -- remaking children into warriors. Which meant he knew what would come next, and then she confirmed it. 

"When the armies found out, they wanted me as a weapon," she said, her voice almost serene. "The Daleks found me first. He tore apart the stars, looking for me, but when he found me..."

She fell silent.

"What had you done?" Jack asked gently. After all, if Sko was made in the image of a Time Lord...

"They could not comprehend the human part of me. Humans, you know, we feel sorrow, we feel love. Daleks feel neither. They were unprepared for pain and fear, especially a child's. They died. All of them. They killed themselves. It did end the war," she added, bright and brittle. "He took me away from them all after that. He raised me in a beautiful place. We fought -- oh how we fought when I joined the Agency. But I did it to serve. To fix what the war had broken. EVentually he understood, I think."

"When was the last time you saw him?" Jack asked. She smiled.

"Yesterday. We had breakfast together," she laughed bitterly. "I couldn't tell him I was coming here to kill him. Tomorrow I will go back and bring him, oh, a souvenier, maybe a postcard, from this time into that. So you see, he may die here in a farmhouse on a little human backwater, in a terrible century, but I know I will see him again."

"Can't be easy," Jack said.

"Who promised easy?" she replied. "Not anyone I would believe. I requested this mission. I know what I am doing is right. I think you know that too."

"If I believe you."

"Of course."

Jack rubbed his eyes, trying to see a way out of this -- to see some resolution that did not end with a woman killing her father, a man he loved and admired. 

"It is all right, you know," she murmured. "He would forgive you if he knew. The -- my -- my father, he understood the difference between what is ideal and what is necessary. Tomorrow I will kill him, to save you and this planet, and you must allow me to do this. You may say goodbye. In ten, twenty, thirty years -- or thirty centuries -- you will see him again too."

"But I'll know he's dead," Jack whispered. 

"Is it true you do not die?"

Jack nodded. 

"Then eventually, everyone will be dead. And what will you do when the universe cools and freezes and the stars go out? When time ends, will you end?"

"I hope so," Jack said. 

"Very well. In the face of the end of the universe, what is one life?"

"Everything."

She lifted the eyepiece and reattached it, through some mechanism he couldn't see. 

"That is true," she agreed. "That is what made my father grieved. Will you let me do this, Captain Jack Harkness?"

"Yes," he said, wretchedly.

***

The next morning found the children awake long before anyone else, heads bent together over a survey map on the kitchen table, playing with mathematics like it existed to entertain them. They didn't seem to remember that there was a dying man in the house, and they didn't notice when a shadow filled the doorway.

The Doctor watched them -- two blurred children, his eyes not what they once were -- as he caught his breath from the long walk down the hallway. He had heard their voices and thought perhaps they were his children, for a moment, but his first children had died in the war, and Jenny had never been so young, and Ellen's voice sounded nothing like Sko, Luke's accent all wrong for Carvasian. 

When Ellen finally looked up and saw him, he expected her to be frightened. He knew that half of his face was red and raw, and the crisp black hair he'd been so proud of in this incarnation was dry and strawlike. What a sight he must look.

Instead, she leaped out of her chair and ran to him, wrapping her arms around his waist -- not in a hug, but to help him into the kitchen, into a chair. Halfway there, the boy she'd been sitting with took his arm and offered support on the other side. He remembered this boy, vaguely. Lukesmith? Luke Smith. Sarah Jane's son. He wasn't certain what century that made this.

"I'll fetch Jack," Luke Smith said, and that sparked another memory. He'd come here looking for someone named Jack, hadn't he? No, someone named Cardiff. No, a _place_ named Cardiff. A place named Harkness? So many memories, and just now he couldn't even sort them out from one another. 

Then Luke Smith was back with a tall, brown-haired man, and he wondered how he could ever have forgotten. Jack Harkness, the fixed point, the axle around which time turned without touching him. Jack Harkness, in the city of Cardiff. 

"Doctor," Jack said -- lovingly, almost reverently, and he was only saved from the horrible sight of Jack kneeling because he managed to kick a chair out for him.

"Jack," he breathed, with effort. "Sorry if I don't stand."

Jack's laugh sounded more like a sob as he sat -- flicking that ridiculous blue coat out behind him, leaning forward to clench strong hands between his knees.

"No need on my account," Jack said, studying his face. He resisted the urge to hide it. "You're not looking so hot."

"Feeling my age," the Doctor answered. "Meant to..." his throat closed up and for a second he couldn't inhale -- he spat and gold spattered on the floor. He cast a shamed look at Ellen, apologetic. Jack touched him, turning his face back up so that their eyes met.

"Meant to?" he prompted gently. 

"Land in Cardiff."

"I'm flattered," Jack said, and he _was_ pleased, anyone could see that. "Keeping busy these last few...millenia?"

The Doctor smiled. "Something like."

And then Jack sobered, as if remembering something, or perhaps his earlier cheer had been an act.

"Why were you coming to Cardiff?" he asked. 

Why had he been...well, because he had been happiest there -- all right, perhaps not on Earth, but it represented so much joy for him. He had found the people he loved most in the world there. And there was no-one else whom he both trusted enough to do this properly, and knew would actually be able to do it, and knew would survive it.

"I'm dying, Jack," he said. He was aware, peripherally, of the still sadness of the children at the table, and of a man coming down the hallway, stopping on the kitchen threshold. 

"I know," Jack murmured. 

"It hurts."

"I know," Jack repeated, and reached out to rub a thumb over his cheek. "Are you afraid?"

He shook his head. "Not at the moment," he added, with what he hoped was at least visible as a smile. "Should I be?"

"Probably," Jack sighed. 

"At least you're honest." He gathered his strength a little. It hurt to talk. "Jack, you can -- I need you to be the one. You can end this."

It was strange that Jack should smile at that. "Fraid someone's already signed up, Doctor."

"Signed...?"

"Hello, father," said a voice from the kitchen doorway. Standing next to the man was a woman -- so familiar, that voice. 

"Sko!" he said, trying to convey all the delight he felt at seeing her. 

"She says she's here to..." Jack choked off the end of the word, and didn't continue.

"Well," the Doctor said. "I suppose that makes sense." 

***

_The Sun: Card is labeled **XII. The Sun** , and is usually found as card XIX. It represents optimism, expansion, personal power, brilliance, and renewal._

_Perhaps unsurprisingly, the card appears to be Jack Harkness in a suit of armour._

***

The rituals of death had never much fascinated Jack until he came to Earth, and after he found he couldn't die, they terrified him. He hated funerals and burials. Torchwood at least had held the attraction of the morgue. The body was put away, paperwork was filled out, and that was an end of it. 

Now he found himself watching the most horrifying of them all -- when a man knew he was dying and people came to say their goodbyes. Gwen and Ianto had declined, Ianto with a quiet, "What is there to say?" but Sarah Jane had sat with the Doctor a while, calling up memories Jack knew the Doctor barely followed, telling him about her brilliant son. Sko sat with him too, as the sun cast long streaks of light into the kitchen, telling him about all the races that had come to witness it and how she would tell them all that he died peacefully. Meredith, who looked as embarrassed by it all as Jack felt, shook his hand and said he was sorry not to know him better.

"I am sorry, too," the Doctor said, but his gaze had drifted to Jack shortly after. Last one. Cleanup. God, he hated to be last.

Sko had some kind of apparatus, a little metal disc that would stop the Doctor's hearts, and Jack heard her unpacking it softly as he pulled up the chair again and tried to figure out what to say. "Be seeing you" came to mind, but Jack recognised when his mind was trying for wildly-inappropriate as a cover for its grief. 

"You don't have to talk, Jack," the Doctor said, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief. "I don't think you'll be shocked to know we sorted our differences long ago, for me, and in your future."

"Some of them already," Jack said.

"That's very good."

"Can I -- " Oh god, there was wildly inappropriate again. Over his shoulder, he saw a faint impatience cross Sko's face. Couldn't drag this out for her. Finally he gave up on asking and just leaned forward and kissed him goodbye. 

Again.

The Doctor smiled, and then said, "Sko?"

She picked up the metal discs and came forward, but even as she did so a look of surprise crossed the Doctor's face. 

"You have," he said, pointing to his lips. Jack hurriedly wiped at his lips with his hand, and saw gold flecking the skin. 

"Sorry," he blurted, and then tried to think of anything to say because he didn't want his last words to the Doctor to be -- 

"No," the Doctor said. "Please -- do that again."

Jack saw Ianto's eyebrows lift almost into his hairline, behind them. Gwen looked shocked. Sarah Jane blinked. 

"Sorry?" Jack said, and then the Doctor surged forward and kissed him and -- something exploded behind his eyes, all gold and white and ripping his insides. His heart stopped, really stopped, then started and stopped and started again. He couldn't breathe. The world seemed to collapse and invert -- 

And then he opened his eyes and the Doctor's eyes were _glowing_.

The Doctor laughed. 

"I knew there was a reason I came for you," he said, but Jack felt his own mouth moving too. When the Doctor laughed again, Jack felt himself laugh too. There was a thread of thin gold light -- which was a little gross, Jack thought distantly, because it was coming from his mouth -- but it seemed to pulse every time he exhaled. It licked across the Doctor's skin, up around the back of his head, down along his chest and arms and legs. Every inhale was the Doctor's, every exhale his own, and his vision narrowed to a single point though his heart felt like it was beating double time -- 

***

_Death: Card is labeled **XIII. Death** , and is one of the few cards in its proper numerical place. It is also known as "the unnamed card" and represents the end of a cycle, change, regeneration, and grief. Sources make a point of stating it rarely represents physical death. Methinks they protest too much. _

_The card is black, with two blue dots that appear to radiate outward. The shape of what appears to be a scythe blade arcs overhead._

***

Jack gasped back to life and promptly fell down.

There was a muffled groan beneath him (nice) and an elbow in his throat, but after an uncoordinated second he was rolled off whatever he'd landed on and lay staring up at the ceiling.

"You pick very inappropriate moments to revive," Ianto's voice said, and then Ianto was bending over him, helping him up. "You couldn't have waited until we got you to a bed?"

"Did I fall on you?" Jack asked with mock-politeness. Ianto rolled his eyes. Jack searched backwards in time for whatever had killed him, so he could ask if it had killed anyone else -- 

"Easy," Ianto said, when Jack tried to turn around towards the kitchen and go forward at the same time and just ended up almost falling over again. 

"The Doctor," Jack said, urgently.

"Is fine," said a new voice. Jack let Ianto turn him this time, though he felt steadier on his feet now. Standing behind him in the hallway was a middle-aged man, mostly grey hair with a scattering of brown, and an enormous, white-toothed grin. Jack took in the smile, the cleft chin, the jawline -- 

"What the hell?" he asked. The man moved forward, laughing, and wrapped him in a tight hug. 

"You know what you are, Jack Harkness?" he asked. "You're a fountain of youth."

"Doctor?" Jack asked. It was like looking -- not in a mirror, or even at his father -- perhaps a distant uncle, a relation but not any he'd ever met. 

"Time Lord biology. Artron energy. Rejuvenation, bending the rules, blah blah," the Doctor said, kissing him soundly on the forehead. "Everybody lives, Jack, remember?"

"Yuh," Jack said, bewildered, and leaned on Ianto, who staggered a little and snorted. The Doctor pulled him upright and started _dancing_ with him.

Top ten surreal moments of a life made of surreal moments: probably number one, definitely at least in the top three. 

"Your biology grafted itself onto me," the Doctor said. "Just a little trickle here and there. Enough to revive all those tired old Time Lord cells that couldn't rewrite themselves anymore."

"So you're immortal?" Jack asked breathlessly.

"Nope!" the Doctor said, laughing. "But I think I've got a few more centuries in the old thing at least. And," he added, pulling Jack close as they spun, while Gwen and Meredith and Ellen laughed in the background, "Just a bit of Jack Harkness in me."

Jack lifted an eyebrow. "Just a bit?"

The Doctor kissed him soundly. 

"I love life again," he said, while Jack reeled. "Haven't felt this good in a long time. Sarah Jane, you next!" 

Jack was released abruptly as the Doctor took Sarah Jane and began waltzing her around the kitchen, ignoring her shriek of surprise. Gwen dodged around them and came to stand next to Jack and Ianto. Sko glanced over at him, took out her eyepiece, and winked. Well, probably winked, given he could only see one eye anyway. 

"There's two of you now," Ianto said. "God help us."

"Nope," Jack answered. "He's his own man. Always was. Just a little...happier now."

"And you?" Gwen asked.

"Oh -- very happy," Jack said, as the Doctor released Sarah Jane and decided to grab Luke and dip him. 

***

It took some planning to get the TARDIS out of St. Dogmaels, locked tight as it was by UNIT. Getting in proved difficult. Jack had to stay behind, having loaned the Doctor his coat so that Torchwood and "Captain Jack Harkness" could pass through the blockade -- though their passing more than confused a few of UNIT's sharper-on-the-uptake personnel. Jack said his goodbyes at the farmhouse, and waited for the outraged phone call. It wasn't long in coming.

"You," said General Fitz, shouting down the phone line. Jack winced and reduced the volume on his earpiece. "You had the TARDIS, Harkness. You left it unsecured. You let the Doctor _get away!_ "

"Did he?" Jack said. "Sorry, Alf. My fault completely. Next time I'll make sure I put an alarm on it."

"Is that all you have to say, Harkness?"

"Well -- officially, yeah."

"And unofficially?"

"You look hot in that uniform," Jack said, and grinned as the line went dead. Meredith, sitting nearby, chuckled. 

"Reckon those UNIT people won't be around much longer," he said.

"Nope," Jack agreed. "The Doctor staged an exit."

"I plan to think of him as Lou. Makes him seem a little more real," Meredith replied. 

"Pragmatic. Very Welsh," Jack said. "Speaking of, I should get going. My people will be waiting for me."

"I can't say it hasn't been weird," Meredith said, as he walked Jack to the door. "Make sure that Smith boy sends my Ellen her parafoil back."

"He's a good kid, I'm sure he will," Jack said. 

"Erm..." Meredith glanced at him. "One other thing..."

Jack spread his hands. "Torchwood lives to serve."

"You think I could get Jones's phone number?"

Jack grinned. "He's taken, Meredith. Sorry."

"Can't blame a man for trying. Look after yourself out in Cardiff."

Jack walked out into the bright, windy day and shoved his hands in his pockets. A long walk down the road to St. Dogmaels, but hopefully Gwen and Ianto would be on their way to pick him up. Out there in the universe, the Doctor was undoubtedly relearning the wonder most humans felt at their first view of the stars from the TARDIS doors. Sko was bringing a postcard (a naughty one, he devoutly hoped) to her father, and Luke was probably already packaging up the parafoil to mail to Ellen.

"Everyone lives," he breathed happily. Because even in the face of the universe ending -- which he might be there to see, one day -- every life mattered. 

He wondered where the Doctor would go first. 

Something fluttered in the air and Jack looked up; it sawed and skittered in the breeze but when it finally landed on the road he picked it up and studied it. 

"You are so weird," he said to the sky, but he tucked the tarot card carefully in his pocket for later.

* * *

EPILOGUE 

_The fool: Card is unnumbered and labeled **The Jester**. More commonly it is known as "The Fool" and is considered to be more complex than many other cards. It represents childlike wonder, the search for knowledge, the love of beauty; also risk-taking, childishness, and a division from reality._

_The card shows a young man with short brown hair resembling Luke Smith and a young unidentified woman with black hair pulled back in braids. They are accompanied by a dog which appears to be missing its nose. The woman holds a postcard reading "Greetings from Barcelona"._

***

At first Ellen thought she was seeing things, the stress of recently exams and of packing her things to move home for the summer finally getting to her. Luke was supposed to be at the Youth International Congress in Japan, giving a keynote speech on the long-term positive economic impact of humanitarian aid, not on the campus of Cardiff University.

Then she thought she'd just mistaken someone else for Luke, which was easy to do. She hadn't seen him very often, really, and photos attached to their frequent emails never quite made up for the real thing. 

But as she was coming down the steps of the sciences building, still shoving the last of her books into her bag, she saw him smile and wave. She burst out laughing and started to run, until he caught her and swept her up into a hug. 

"What are you doing here?" she asked, as he set her down. "I thought you were in Tokyo!"

"I was," he said. "About six months ago."

She stared at him for a second, disbelieving, and then punched him in the shoulder.

"Ow!" he said. "What was that for?"

"You've been with the Doctor!" she blurted. 

"Yup," he replied, and looked so smug that she punched him again. "OW!"

"That's for not telling me," she told him.

"I couldn't! Not until the timelines matched up. Imagine if you'd got a letter from me in Tokyo and then the next day got another one from me from _Mars_ ," he pointed out. 

"Mars isn't inhabited," she sulked. "It wouldn't have reached me before I died, probably."

"That is completely beside the point," he insisted. "Come on then."

"Come on where?" she asked. His grin brightened. "No!"

"Yup. Pack up your brilliant physicist's brain, the Doctor says you're not going to learn anything more about the universe until you get out in it a bit."

She looked beyond him, to where a shabbily-dressed man was standing, hands in his pockets, looking anxious and expectant. He gave her a small wave as the wind ruffled his greying brown hair. 

"Come with us, Ellen," Luke said, almost pleading. "Please come with us, time-travel's no fun without you."

She hugged him again. "Course I will. Can I go home and get a toothbrush first?"

Over Luke's shoulder, the Doctor dangled a small cellophane-wrapped package. "Got one for you already," he said with a bright beaming smile. 

Luke's own smile was a little shy as he took her hand and walked with her, the Doctor leading the way, down and out of the campus. Heading for the Plass, she realised, where he'd probably already stopped in to say hi to Ianto and Jack and the others. She felt like punching him again for that, but instead as they reached the Plass she dug out her mobile and called home.

"Hi, Dad?" she said, when he answered. "Listen, I might be a little late getting home for the summer. Yeah...bit of a sudden opportunity."

Luke laughed, then let go of her hand and followed the Doctor, stopping in the doorway of the blue police box.

"Lou's taking me on a study abroad programme," she said. "I will. I will! Goodbye, Dad! I've got to go, they're waiting! I'll send you heaps of postcards. Love you!"

And she ran into the TARDIS. 

END

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover Art for Sing Morning Out Of Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4406888) by [Thurifut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thurifut/pseuds/Thurifut)




End file.
